May 28-29, 2179
Rumors said that the snowstorm brought the tall man to the town. Only Randy’s parents knew the truth.
About a century ago, after the cold circumpolar current vanished from around Antarctica, snow in McMurdo became a rare and fleeting sight. But today, a fierce blizzard raged over the city, as if exacting vengeance for all the quiet years that had come before.
The fishing boats, hauled ashore and draped in tarps, had transformed into white mounds stretching in a chain along the shore; with each passing day, these mounds grew taller. The town dwellers barely managed to clear the snow from their roofs, greeting each morning with a stream of curses. The pitch-black seawater seemed to boil in the freezing air, crashing against the shore and dragging the volcano-born pebbles with a deep roar.
On such days, the road was no place for a caravan—or a lone traveler—with too few inhabited places to find shelter for the night.
"But where did the electricity come from?" Randy asked, shifting his stool closer to the stove, where his guest sat in a creaky wicker rocking chair, waiting for dinner. Dr. Ilya Osokin, Randy's stepfather, had brought the man in before heading back to his clinic.
The guest was an aged man named Vassiliy Rakhmanov—as straight as an arrow, though quite weary. He resembled most of the locals in build, but unlike them, he was pale, as if he had spent a long time indoors. Remarkably, he still had all his teeth—a rare boast in the post-blackout Antarctica, usually reserved for the young. His skin clung tightly to the bones of his face, yet deep, jagged wrinkles etched his forehead, circled his nose, and framed his eyes, resembling cracks in stone. Beneath thick silver eyebrows, his blue eyes held the chill of ice, but his smile radiated an innocent warmth and a lively energy.
The man was unusually tall and towered over others.His overalls were unlike those typically worn by Antarctic residents—dark gray with a faint sheen, made of tightly interlocking scales that resembled the skin of a lizard or a fish. At first glance, the unfamiliar material appeared rigid, yet Rakhmanov moved in it with surprising ease.
Randy couldn't help but notice the unmistakable reverence his father showed toward Rakhmanov. With an unfamiliar enthusiasm, the usually somber doctor had seated the guest by the fire. He had hosted travelers before, but none of them was wrapped in such a thick veil of mystery.
“Electricity,” Rakhmanov said, eyes bright, “is the movement of tiny, negatively charged particles — electrons — that transfer energy from one end of a conductor to another.”
“That energy gives us heat. Light. It turns wheels, powers tools. To most people, it looks like magic.”
Randy blinked.
“Tiny particles?” he echoed, lifting an old aluminum spoon to his eye. “Like... this small?”
Rakhmanov chuckled. “Smaller. You can’t see them — not with your eyes, not with a magnifier. But they’re everywhere.”
“Even here?” Randy asked, almost whispering.
“Especially here,” Rakhmanov said. “They’re part of us as well.”
Randy sat back, spoon forgotten.
“Okay… but what makes them move?”
Rakhmanov hesitated — his long, knotted fingers tapping gently on the chair’s armrest, as if searching for a memory.
“The wind. Flowing water. The warmth of the sun. Or the atom’s fire — though you don’t know atoms yet. We could start with that... if you want.”
From the kitchen, Alda’s voice cut across the room.
“Randy!” she snapped gently, clearing scraps of fried shells, pickled radish, seaweed bread. “Don’t pester our guest. He’s tired.”
She was a small woman, fine-boned and quiet, but carried herself with a certain gravity — like stone beneath snow. Her black hair was twisted high and fixed with a carved bone pin.
Rakhmanov tilted his head.
"You come from Mirny like your husband?"
"From Port Amundsen," the woman's tone grew somber. "Today, it’s definitely not a place for someone like you."
The Osokins had accepted Alda and Randy into their family eight years earlier. Pregnant and alone, Alda had to flee the town of Port Amundsen the day the Moon Cross fanatics hanged her lover Eino for "heresy, blasphemy and plotting against the servants of the Prophet." She barely made it to McMurdo before it was time to give birth.
Having assisted her in childbirth, the doctor learned she had nowhere to go—except to distant relatives in the Seven Winds, whom she had never met. Ilya offered her shelter in exchange for household help until her son Randy turned at least two.
Soon after the teacher died, Alda took her place at the local school. She was well-educated, calm under pressure — and, as people in the settlement quietly said, more capable than most men they'd ever met.
It didn’t take long for her and Ilya to realize they were stronger together than apart. They became partners in every sense of the word.
Dr. Osokin treated Randy with politeness, even kindness. But they were never especially close. His attention was fixed on Arseniy, his own son.
Randy didn’t mind. The less attention, the fewer lessons.
Rakhmanov reached into his gray belly bag and pulled out a small, battered notebook and a stub of a pencil — both worn but intact. To Randy, they looked like treasure.
“Now,” the traveler said, “I’ll show you what an electrical circuit is.”
He drew a quick diagram with fluid, practiced motion.
“And if this snow keeps falling another day or two, we might even build a wind turbine. You’ve got scrap metal, right? Old batteries? Some copper wire?”
Randy’s face fell.
“Used to. You could take as much as you could carry from the Dump back then. Now... bad people guard it.”
“Bad people?” Rakhmanov raised an eyebrow.
“The Prince’s men,” Alda cut in sharply. “Randy, don’t talk about them like that.”
“Why not?” the boy muttered. “It used to belong to everyone.”
Rakhmanov paused, tapping the pencil against the edge of the notebook.
“When people aren’t ready to fight for something,” he said, voice low, “those who are take it. Can’t really blame you kids. Let me guess — they had guns?”
“Yeah,” Randy answered, quieter now. “Big ones.”
“So now you’ve got a Prince. Could be worse. Could be an Emperor,” Rakhmanov sighed. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“But where the hell did they even get firearms down here?” he asked, this time turning toward Alda.
Randy realized, with a sudden twist in his gut, that they still didn’t know much about this man. Not where he came from. Not where he was going. His mother, judging by her expression, knew little more.
“Not all our scientific facilities were as peaceful as they claimed,” Alda said, brushing crumbs into a tin bowl. “After the revolution on Mars, people started looking at each other with suspicion. Country by country. Corp by corp.”
“The ones that made it down here brought more than scientists,” she added. “They brought security. Private armies. Guns.”
Randy looked at her, then at Rakhmanov, and back. He didn’t say it out loud — but his smirk said enough: And here we have one of them. Who else wears lizard-scale armor and talks about electrons like they’re old friends?
“They took the coal, too,” Randy muttered. “All of it. It used to go to other countries. Then it just… stopped.”
“Roads. Power plants. All of it had to be guarded,” Alda said. “This block of ice didn’t stay peaceful for long.”
Rakhmanov gave a low whistle.
“You don’t say. And here I thought there’d be more ice.”
The corner of Alda’s mouth lifted, just barely.
She poured steaming herbal tea into a chipped enamel mug and set it gently in front of him. Real coffee and wine — if they made it from South America at all — were sold in places like Railtown and Seven Winds, and only if smugglers were lucky and Moon Cross patrols looked the other way.
Then Alda straightened.
“And you come from...?”
Her voice was careful. Rakhmanov stood, leaned forward and, after a long pause, whispered something into her ear. She didn’t answer, but something in her posture changed — just slightly.
Randy noticed his mother's head slowly shake as she overcame her stupor. He silently regretted not being let in on the secret. However, he resolved to uncover the truth, no matter the cost.
"So, how did you make it through the Blackout?" Alda asked, agitated. "Looks like it didn't harm you too much?"
"Perhaps," the man said, no longer whispering but still very softly, "the Blackout has a different nature than people are used to believe."
The woman glanced around, likely pondering where to send her son so she could have a more in-depth talk with the guest. But with the snowfall and rising wind, it was hardly suitable weather for playing outside—especially if her restless son had an urge to wander onto the icy pier. Randy, for his part, was upset that he wasn't trusted with the secret; at his eight years, he had never spilled a single one and was quite proud of it.
"By the way," Rakhmanov said, turning to the hostess and once again trying to ease the tension, "are you one of those de la Sernas who were the first to reforest the continent?"
"Almost," Alda answered cautiously. "My grandfather and uncle worked on terraforming, and my father ran the power plant. But how do you know about that?"
"Their work helped us establish our own home. We owe a great deal to Antarctica."
"But can you show me some electricity?" Randy asked again, once his mother had left, leaving the guest in his care.
When the boy was curious about something, he could be incredibly persistent, and his instinct told him that the guest might know more than even his own parents.
"Not today. The story will be long, and I'm tired after a whole day of travel. Let me show you electricity in action, so you don't think I'm telling fairy tales. Now fetch your fluffy friend."
Randy lifted the sleepy, weakly protesting Firefly off the stove.
"Would you like to pet it and see what happens?"
Wondering what could be so unusual about it, Randy obeyed. Two barely visible sparks flickered out from beneath the boy's palm.
"I've seen this before. But never really paid attention!"
"Lightning in the sky is just like those sparks—they have the same nature. And we'll still draw a circuit, and I'll explain how it works and what it does... You'll need to know this if you want electricity in your house someday..."
Randy, in turn, had plenty of stories to share with the guest—about legendary snow dogs the size of yaks, about the gang of Lost Kids, whose cruelty was rivaled only by the Moon Cross Brotherhood, and about the strange friendship between a fisherman's daughter and a mighty killer whale. What was true and what was pure imagination, no one could say for certain anymore.
As sometimes happened, Doctor Osokin and Arseny arrived from the infirmary late at night. There had been a complex fracture, and as usual, alcohol was the only anesthesia available.
Randy quickly served them dinner, only to be sent off to the barn to heat water for washing. He couldn't help but feel annoyed—his father didn't seem that eager to bathe; clearly, some important conversations were taking place without him, conversations a child wasn't supposed to overhear. But did the number of years one has lived on Earth really make a person better or worse?.. Randy strongly opposed the idea.
By morning, the snowfall had eased, and Randy, afraid the guest might leave too soon, hung on his every move, every word.
At breakfast, Doctor Osokin, Rakhmanov and Arseny discussed vaccinations.
They explained how they cultivated penicillin mold and weakened cultures of harmful microbes in test tubes. During the summer, they relied on ice from the Central Glacier to maintain the necessary temperatures, making them entirely dependent on traders. Winter, however, presented the opposite challenge—preventing the valuable samples from overfreezing.
Randy had heard plenty from his father about microbes and how dangerous they were, but he hadn't known that his father and brother were actively growing this "infection"!
Noticing the boy's alarmed expression, Ilya quickly reassured him, explaining that weakened pathogens, far from being harmful, actually protected people.
"Does your hospital still have thermostats? Refrigeration units? Emergency heaters?" Rakhmanov asked. "Or have they all been stripped for spare parts?"
"We've got plenty of equipment—the lasers alone are impressive. But they're less useful than my frige: at least I can store something in it," the doctor grunted, stroking his beard.
"I'll start with that, if you don't mind me staying here a while. If it works, I'll figure something out for the hospital too," Rakhmanov said.
At the word "stay," Randy nearly burst out in excitement. Thirteen-year-old Arseny's blue eyes opened wide.
"What are you talking about now? Surely not about electricity?"
"Yeah. I'll look for materials at your Dump and try to put together a wind turbine—just a small one for now."
"Oh, you should talk to Randy! He's the dump expert!" Arseny smirked, never missing a chance to mock the younger boy.
"I'm surprised no one took care of this earlier, with such wealth right at hand," Rakhmanov shook his head.
"Someone's tried building a wind turbine, right?" Arseny asked his father.
"Master Matsubara tried, but it didn't work out for him..." Doctor Osokin sighed. "Either he couldn't find the right elements, or he didn't know how to assemble them properly."
The intended visit to the Dump seriously worried Alda, especially since Randy had decided to accompany the guest no matter what.
"You're not planning to go around security, are you?" she asked the old man.
"Of course not. I avoid trouble as long as the trouble avoids me."
Clinging to each other to avoid falling in the wind on the slippery street, the old man and the boy reached the city gates, where they were stamped with a garish pink exit seal. The guards, along with the rare passerby, were surprised that they weren't sitting by the fire in such miserable weather. Randy joked that he went outside to save on coal at home. But the joke was more than half true: in winter, his house never got warm enough to walk around in less than two sweaters, and he only bathed once a week during this time of year. So far, the town had enough fuel—but for how long? The boy didn't know.
"I can understand shutting down one power plant. But around the world—how?" Randy wondered, lifting his feet high in the sticky snow.
"The sun, Randy. It gives life, but it can also destroy when its power is too great," Rakhmanov replied. "Every few centuries, it goes into a rage, like people or animals... The waves and streams of charged particles it throws into space are incredibly powerful."
"Not those particles again..."
"Yes, Randy. They burned all the devices that were left unprotected. And I'll tell you, in the first year, as many people died as in both World Wars combined... But I doubt that you know what a World War is."
The boy narrowed his dark brown eyes in disbelief.
"We live like this so long..."
"Your people got used to the hardships in Antarctica before it warmed up so much. Besides, there were never many of you. But megacities were different – they didn't just grow upwards, they grew downwards too. People lived there by the millions, you could say “on top of each other”. Huge towers above, and well-cities below, descending dozens of meters into the earth. The people living there depended entirely on machines; over time, they stopped working, learning, and thinking, spending most of their time in artificial dreams. Robots did everything for them, and that's where Blackout struck... As the saying goes, where something is thin, that's where it tears.”
To imagine everything his guest was telling him cost Randy a great effort, as if he was climbing a steep and slippery rock.
“Now, imagine living half a kilometer above the ground and not being able to get out of the building quickly because the elevator no longer works. Going down the stairs is still possible, but going up from that same depth to the surface, with everyone else rushing for the exits, and some trampling over others, leaves you with little chance. Especially if you're old, frail, or sick, and there's no light..."
Rakhmanov winced, as if he had seen it all himself (and perhaps he had: some from the older generation had witnessed the end of the Golden Age in their conscious years). The "cracks" on his face deepened like abysses.
"At that time, there were almost no paper books left. Everything was stored digitally. And where there was no electromagnetic protection, all the textbooks, tables, formulas, and drawings disappeared — all the knowledge about life that no one had kept in memory, you understand? They wouldn't even have been able to bake potatoes, much less plant them."
Randy looked at the man with a bit of distrust. "Poor idiots... So, you've witnessed all this mayhem?..."
"No, but I've seen my fair share of terrible things too. Starting from finding myself alone on a deserted island."
"Is it really so bad? No one talks in your ear, no one forces you to go to sleep when you don't want to," the boy objected.
"A day or two, it can be fun. But weeks, months, and years — that's another kind of torture. Especially when you don't know if you'll ever see people again or if you are just going to rot." Rakhmanov suddenly slumped and now seemed frail. "I had to talk to a feral pig just to keep from losing my mind."
"And then? You built a boat, right?"
"A bunch of evil guys came for me, the kind you'd never want to deal with, but they played their part in my fate. That's why I'd never advise you to despair, even if things go out of control."
"Are these guys pirates or something?"
"You could say that, Randy. They call themselves Nautilus. Once in awhile they sail to some coastal town where there are valuable metals, functioning machines, and educated people—of whom there are few and far between these days—and take them with them. Sometimes Nautilus buys everything they need and leaves peacefully, but if they meet resistance, they deal with the rebels. The greatest loss for communities like yours is, of course, people of knowledge. Losing a machine is no big deal if there's someone capable of fixing or rebuilding it. But if this person disappears without leaving any disciples, the rest will plummet to the Stone Age... Of course, I didn't want to stay with the scum, even though they fed me well, gave me shelter, and offered me other things that only chosen ones can enjoy. But the right thing was to run away, even if it would take years."
Randy's mind was overwhelmed with questions; the only one he dared to ask was:
"Can they ever come here?"
"If they find it necessary."
"Even though our Prince is a brute, it's better warn him," Randy said in a quiet voice. "It's a good reason to organize a better defense!"
Rakhmanov shook his head.
"Right now, I'd better avoid princes, kings, and other human trash. But it will be good if your dad informs others."
"Here is the Dump. People used to drag everything they needed for their households from here. Then the prince's riflemen came, put up barbed wire, and started shooting at anyone who tried to get past them. Sometimes, it was even to the death."
Randy gestured at the long wire fence surrounding an area of at least a square kilometer, littered with the rusty skeletons of old cars and other non-biodegradable junk. In the center stood a cyclopean building, made of local reddish rock and resembling a cluster of crystals; from a distance, it appeared ghostly, half-dissolved in the dense snowfall.
"In the old days, there was a factory at the Dump, where they turned this junk into useful things: nothing went to waste... After the Blackout, it stood empty for a while—people didn't know what to do with such a huge place. Now it serves as a castle to our Prince."
"The Junkyard Prince. That's funny," Rakhmanov chuckled dryly.
At the barricade serving as the gate to the Dump, crossbowmen in thick winter clothes idly stood by. Both wore dirty white balaclavas that left only their eyes exposed, making them look like filthy snowmen.
Seeing the guests, the valiant guards straightened up. One of them readied his crossbow, even though there was no need for it. Randy felt no fear; he only wondered their miserable job paid well.
"Morning, guys," Rakhmanov switched from Russian, which he had been speaking with Randy, to English. "Can we get inside?"
"Brought any bullets? Coffee beans? Or maybe batteries?" one of the guards asked.
"Something more tempting," said Rakhmanov, showing the guard two thin white tubes, each about the length of a finger.
"What's this?" the guard scowled, grabbing the tube with his fingers in a thick knitted glove.
"Can you read? That's sugar."
"You're lying! No one's had sugar here for half a century... Not even in Railtown."
Rakhmanov smiled.
"Please, taste it!"
"I'll do!" roared the second guard, slapping his companion hard on the forearm.
"Father! Do you have more? I'd trade you a chunk of seal fat!"
"I'm giving away my last..." Rakhmanov sighed, making Randy a bit sad.
The guards exchanged glances, figuring out how what to do next with the stranger.
"With this, you'll only take five kilos each. Give me another dose, and you can take ten. Where there's two sugars, there's usually a third..."
"You've never seen him before, smartass," Randy thought, while Rakhmanov just shrugged apologetically.
"OK, move it."
The barrier lifted, and the adventurers entered a vast space, the ground hidden beneath a layer of garbage. Rusty metal cans, plastic bottles, and broken glass crunched underfoot. Meanwhile, the snow had stopped falling.
"Nothing good here," said the boy, who had recently been a regular at this place, with confidence. "The best things are deeper in."
"As always," Rakhmanov said with a smile.
"Maybe you could tell me how you ended up on the island?" Randy decided to approach it gently, hoping that the mysterious old man might, at least indirectly, reveal where he had come from, how he got to Antarctica, and most importantly — why."
"I'm a flight engineer and joined the crew to replace an injured colleague," Rakhmanov explained. "We were searching for places where civilization had endured, on a flying ship—one of many that used to exist."
"Wow! You mean, some of them are functional?"
"Yes. Not all the ships were lost to the Blackout. But my crew turned against me, and I ended up marooned on the goddamn island. The rest, you already know."
"You used to live in the Soviet Union, didn't you?" The boy nearly jumped with excitement. Why was Rakhmanov so hesitant to admit it out loud?
"How much farther do we have to go?" said Rakhmanov to Randy's great disappointment. The man was obviously reluctant to reveal his origins. And who was Randy to insist?
Randy pointed to a green ribbon tied to an iron stake, fluttering in the wind. Then, spotting something in the snow, he stepped aside and picked up a doll. Its long silver dress, embroidered and untouched by time, shone faintly through the grime. The doll had the figure of an adult woman—breasts, a slim waist, and hips—with blue hair flowing down to its knees and shiny blue eyes that could close (though the left eye was missing, leaving a dark hollow in its place). The Hidi seal hunters from Bone Island would trade an entire seal for a toy like this: they believed humanoid dolls to be talismans that brought good fortune and fertility.
"We need a wire, a rotor, and any kind of battery," Rakhmanov said as they came upon a homemade flag Randy had crafted during a previous visit to mark a 'sweet spot.'
"I wish I knew what this battery of yours looks like," Randy muttered.
"A cube with a lightning bolt logo and the inscription 'Lindon Power,'" he said, outlining the cube's approximate dimensions with his hands, "or one with a cat's head and the word 'Irbis' in Russian. Ever come across these designs?"
"Not yet. Maybe we should check the transporter," Randy said, pointing to a white mound three times as tall as himself. "A whole bunch of guys couldn't break it apart, but maybe you can!"
Rakhmanov quietly smiled at the boy's mistake of thinking he was a wizard, then pointed a dry finger at the end of a wire sticking out of the snow, barely visible to the attentive eye. The wire was a little longer than Randy's own height—hardly anything at all. But Rakhmanov was pleased.
He coiled the wire in his hand and tucked it at the bottom of his backpack, from which he had thoughtfully removed everything except a set of tools in a matte metal case. Then, with the energy of a twenty-year-old, he dashed to the transporter and began clearing the snow from it with his hands.
The transporter was still formidable, despite the fact that the locals had already stripped it of its caterpillar tracks, unscrewing and tearing off everything they could from the outside. Once cleared of snow, the machine resembled a swordtail, a trilobite, or some other prehistoric arthropod.
The hull was covered in scratches and dents from countless blows: it had been sawn with hacksaws, chopped with axes, but all in vain. A crack as thin as a spider's thread, where the operator's cabin had sealed, had been unsuccessfully widened with a knife, as the locals hadn't quite realized that this was a bit more complicated than opening a can of tuna. Randy still couldn't figure out where the driver's cabin was: perhaps the machine had been operating autonomously until Blackout shut it down.
"See that black notch?" Rakhmanov asked the boy. "That's where the machine's eye was, through which it scanned the space around it. If we can open the casing, we'll have everything we need, and won't have to go any further."
"There's no keyhole," Randy said, annoyed—he wasn't about to trudge through the junkyard until dark, even for the sake of mystical electricity. "Oh, wait, I'm sorry—here it is."
"Exactly... Electronics are electronics, but in an emergency, the operator should be able to open the cabin manually. Not to mention the repair robot..."
The well was located on the "spine" of the transporter, where a small ladder led up the rounded side. Randy climbed it to join Rakhmanov. The keyhole was shaped like a sun with short rays.
After removing his backpack, Rakhmanov opened a case filled with strange tools that looked more like a surgeon's kit than a mechanic's. Inside, there were three levels, and the flight engineer carefully extended the bottom one. Taking a tool that resembled a knitting needle with a handle handcrafted of plastic, he carefully inserted it into the center of the "sun," twisted it, but then shook his head in disappointment.
He tried one metal piece after another from the case, but got the same result. Then Rakhmanov extended the second section of the case and pulled out a small, flat gray box, about the size of his palm. When he placed it against the lock, it beeped loudly, and four red dots lit up in its rounded corner.
"Lucky we are. The lock is still operational," Rakhmanov said. With a quiet click, the box seemed to latch onto the lock. "The casing should open when the lights turn green," he explained. "And while the code is being figured out, let's wander around and see if there's anything else we might need."
"Nuts, bolts, clamps – I've got a whole box of them in the shed," Randy said cheerfully.
"Wires! We need more wires! Turn on your junk sense, young man!"
"Right away, sir!"
"Just drop the 'sir,' alright?"
Then came noon, and Rakhmanov's "magic" box still hadn't managed to hack the transporter. Meanwhile, Randy had unearthed an entire coil of wire from the scrap heap when he noticed that someone else was about to join their little group. They only realized the newcomer was approaching when a long blue shadow stretched across the snow.
They saw another guard—a broad-shouldered man clad in a thick camouflage jacket trimmed with dog fur. He wasn't present at the checkpoint, when they entered the junkyard. Most likely, he'd come down from the Castle, having spotted Randy and Rakhmanov from the rooftop.
Instead of a crossbow, this guard carried a versatile American M-337 rifle with an under-barrel grenade launcher. The boy, who had picked up a solid understanding of weapons from Masako Matsubara, the town blacksmith and his future mentor, felt danger creeping in.
"How was the walk, guys?" the stranger asked, his voice utterly flat.
"Is this why you came all this way?" Randy hissed, smelling the rat.
"Your friend here is about to hand over all his sugar. And his boots. If he puts up a fight, he'll be taking a long, long nap. Old man! You're not going to argue, are you?"
The guard flicked the safety off his weapon, making his deadly intent unmistakable. Randy, well-acquainted with local ways, understood all too clearly that he and Rakhmanov weren't just being frightened for effect. The laws hastily drafted by the new ruler—arbitrary, yet far from accidental—offered protection to visitors only within the city limits. The dump, however, no longer qualified as part of the city, meaning that any armed man held absolute power here. The boy's stomach twisted into a knot, but his clarity of thought remained unshaken, and his eyes darted to the ground, searching for a possible weapon.
"Are you sure the boots will fit?" Rahmanov asked unexpectedly softly, raising his hands palms-up toward his foe. "I'm at least a head taller than you."
"More isn't less. Get moving," said the man with the rifle, his nerves fraying at the stranger's outstanding composure.
"I'm carrying no more sugar ," said the flight engineer, sitting down to untie his shoe. "I left everything back in the house."
"You're lying. You don't leave things like that lying around," the thug said through gritted teeth.
"The boy sees everything. You gonna kill him as well?" asked the old man.
"The kid won't say a bloody word, or I'll kill his whole his petty family," the thug said heavily, glaring at the young boy. "Do you love your parents, buddy?"
Randy sullenly spat at the ground, his eyes landing on a rusty can dusted with snow. The main thing now was to pick the right moment, throw it, and make a run for it. But would the elderly Rakhmanov have the speed for such a dash?
"Please, lower the gun," Rakhmanov asked in the same reassuring tone, still fussing with his boot. Are they all so naive in the Soviet Union?
At least one thing worked in Randy's favor: the guard's full attention was on the old man, giving the boy a chance to reach for the can. But his hopes shattered when the muzzle of the gun pressed against the flight engineer's head. In a situation like this, only a fool would risk throwing tin cans. The next moment, the gun roared, making Randy flinch as the bullet tore into the ground near his feet.
Evading the shot with a lightning-fast turn, Rakhmanov used something that looked like a pocket flashlight. A thing that he’d been hiding in his boot.
A burst of white light, a blood-curdling scream.
Randy saw the robber claw at his own face as it rapidly blackened, turning to charcoal. The man’s legs thrashed violently on the ground for seconds before another flash ended his agony. Rakhmanov sighed heavily, slid the deadly 'flashlight' back into his boot, and strode towards the trembling child.
Behind him, a device emitted a prolonged beep, signaling the success of the break-in. The engineer reached out to place a hand on Randy's shoulder, but the boy flinched and bolted as fast as he could. Tears streamed down his face, while the relentless shrieking of the dying thug reverberated endlessly in his ears.
Artists: Roman Bocharov (Dioneth), Lana Cardi
I enjoyed this! I like how you balance the hard science with the simpler setting and mindset without overwhelming the story.
Great worldbuilding and character building for what I assume are the main two characters. Very well written chapter.
I do wonder if the tension could come in bit earlier and maybe some of the back story later on to help grab the readers' attention. It does depend on your targeted audience, of course.
The world is super interesting and both characters are very compelling. Great job.