Chapter 3. Contact (Part 2)

  Dmitry stood in the clearing five meters from the machine, holding the rugged tablet. The morning wind flapped the hem of his unzipped jacket, but he didn't notice the cold. He looked at the Ark with the critical gaze of a sculptor about to cut away everything superfluous. In this case, the superfluous was a ton of dried swamp clay.

  Wash it? Dmitry grimaced. Wasting precious water from the tanks was wasteful. Driving the machine to the river, where the bank might be quicksand, was a risk. Hauling water in buckets was laziness.

  "Physics," he muttered, touching the screen with the stylus. "Resonance and vibration. Why wash what can fall off by itself?"

  He opened the chassis control engineering menu. "Suspension Diagnostic Mode: Active." "Actuator Test."

  Dmitry pressed the virtual "Cycle All" button. "Dance, baby."

  The Ark came alive. First, there was a sharp, hissing sound of escaping air: PSH-SH-SH! The huge machine abruptly squatted on the front axle, like a predator before a pounce. The crust of dried mud on the fenders and running boards couldn't withstand the deformation. CRACK! The sound was like the shot of a breaking bone. Large slabs of clay cracked and fell onto the grass.

  Then—WHOOSH! Pneumatics threw the front end up half a meter, using the entire travel of the suspension. The machine reared up. Mud from the wheel arches, knocked out by the impact of the bump stops, flew in all directions like shrapnel.

  "Excellent," Dmitry grinned. "Now lateral rolls."

  The machine began to rock. Left side down—right side up. Right down—left up. It looked surreal. A twenty-six-ton motorhome shifting from foot to foot like a living creature stretching stiff muscles. It groaned with its joints, sighed with its air springs, and shook off the scales of an alien world. The ground around the Ark became covered with piles of gray rubble.

  "Not enough," Dmitry assessed. "The mud on the rims is sitting tight. We need bass."

  He switched to the "Engine" tab. "Throttle Valve Test. Range: 800 — 2500 rpm." "Let's give it some heat."

  Dmitry slid the slider on the screen. The diesel, which had been peacefully purring at idle, suddenly changed its tone. The turbine whistled, sucking in air. R-R-R-R-R-R-R! The RPMs jumped to fifteen hundred. The ground under Dmitry's feet trembled slightly. The vibration of the heavy motor passed through the frame, transmitting to every bolt, every panel of the plating. The mud packed into the tire treads and stuck to the rims began to flake off. It rained down in fine dust.

  "More!" Dmitry shouted excitedly, shouting over the roar of the motor. "Maximum!"

  He jerked the slider to the red zone. VRA-A-A-A-A-A-M! The twelve-cylinder monster roared so loud that pine cones fell from the nearby trees. A column of black smoke mixed with heat burst from the exhaust pipe on the roof. The sound was physically dense. It hit the chest. It was the roar of an enraged tyrannosaurus.

  Dmitry stood in the vortex of sound and enjoyed the power. At that moment, he decided to test everything at once. "Lights" tab. "Mode: Strobe / SOS / Search." "Disco time!"

  The Ark flared up. All light fixtures—headlights, the powerful light bar on the roof, side work lights, rear spotlights—began to flash in a frantic rhythm. Bright, blindingly white flashes sliced through the morning twilight of the forest. The LEDs hit the eyes, creating a strobe effect. The machine roared, jumped on its pneumatics, and shot light in all directions.

  And the final chord. "Signal" tab. The Hadley air horn, taken from an American highway truck. Two chrome trumpets on the roof. Dmitry pressed the "Horn Test" button.

  HO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-N-K!

  The sound was such that Dmitry instinctively ducked. It was the "Voice of God." A low-frequency honk that vibrated the insides and plugged the ears. It rolled over the forest, over the river, hit the castle walls, and returned as a menacing echo.

  Dmitry released the button. Returned the engine to idle mode. Turned off the lights. Leveled the suspension to the transport position.

  Silence fell. Ringing, absolute silence. Only pieces of mud continued to fall from the undercarriage with a quiet thud: tap... tap... splat. Most of the clay had fallen off. The Ark stood in the center of a dirty circle, but was itself almost clean. The wheels were free, the suspension shone (well, almost) with metal, dust fell from the sides.

  "And that's how we wash," Dmitry said with satisfaction, locking the tablet screen.

  He looked up at the castle. On the wall, where two figures had stood a minute ago, there was no one. Empty. Blown away by the wind.

  Dmitry chuckled. He hadn't thought about how it looked from the outside. For him, it was a systems diagnostic. For the inhabitants of a medieval world, it looked like this: an iron mountain that came from the cursed swamps suddenly came to life. It began to breathe, rising and falling. It growled with the voice of a thousand beasts. It began to spew smoke. It began to blink its eyes, blinding everything around. And in the end, it let out a trumpet voice that made their dilapidated walls tremble.

  And nearby stood a man with a small black tablet in his hands and, without touching the monster, made it rampage.

  "Seems I made a lasting impression," Dmitry muttered, scratching his unshaven chin. "Hope they didn't die of a heart attack. Diplomacy started from a position of strength."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He tucked the tablet under his arm and headed for the machine. "Alright. Knocked the mud off. Now fine cleaning. And antenna repair."

  Dmitry clipped the tablet to his belt and climbed the side ladder to the roof of the living module. The steps of checker-plate aluminum were slippery from the morning drizzle, but his Lowa boots held a death grip.

  Chaos reigned on the roof of the Ark, hidden from view from the ground. The space between the expedition roof rack and the hatches was packed with branches and leaves he had collected while tearing through the thicket. But the main thing—the solar panels. All six flexible modules glued to the roof were covered with a dense, impenetrable crust of dried clay.

  "Well, of course," Dmitry chuckled, running a finger over the dirty plastic. "What kind of amps can we have here? We're blind."

  He took a long-handled brush from the box on the roof rack. No water was required—the mud was dry and flew off in sheets. Five minutes of work with the brush, and the black glossy surface of the panels saw the sky again. Even under this overcast, leaden sky, the MPPT charge controller should have woken up immediately.

  Then—the antenna. Dmitry unscrewed the mangled stump of the whip, which hung sadly on the wire, and threw it down into the grass. He took a spare antenna from a sealed tube, greased the threads with graphite lubricant, and screwed it into place. The flexible whip swayed elastically, ready to catch the ether.

  Finished with the "hardware," Dmitry straightened up to his full height. From a height of almost four meters, there was an excellent view over the fortress wall. Now he could look inside the castle without entering it.

  What he saw made him grimace. The courtyard looked like a cesspool. Rotten wooden structures, black puddles, piles of garbage. And people... From above, they seemed like small gray dots swarming in the mud.

  "Yeah," he drawled, wiping his hands on a rag. "The romance of knightly tournaments is cancelled. Dysentery reigns here."

  He cast a final glance at the antenna, confirmed that the anemometer was hopelessly smashed (repairs would wait), and began to descend. Below, a general cleaning of the salon awaited him.

  Dmitry climbed down from the roof, threw the tools into the box, and entered the living module. And froze on the threshold.

  By the daylight pouring through the raised armored shutters, the interior of the Ark looked not just dirty. It looked desecrated. Yesterday, in the darkness and fatigue, the scale of the disaster seemed smaller. Today, every detail screamed of catastrophe. The golden teak floor looked like the floor in a train station toilet. Gray streaks of dried clay, black stains from rubber boots, crumbs of peat, and some dried blades of grass stuck in the joints of the deck board. On the Recaro pilot's seat—where he had sat in dirty coveralls—remained a distinct brown imprint of a back. Dust on the control panel. Cloudy fingerprints on the chrome handles of the cabinets.

  The air, although filtered, still held a barely perceptible but nauseating whiff of yesterday's swamp.

  "Pigsty," Dmitry exhaled with disgust. "Elite homeless shelter on wheels."

  He imagined opening the door and inviting someone inside. Shame burned his face. "No. No guests. And I'm not going anywhere until it smells like an operating room in here."

  Dmitry locked the airlock door with all locks. Walled himself off from the outside world. Now his enemy was here, inside.

  He walked to the utility closet. This was his arsenal of purity. A Dyson V15 Detect vacuum cleaner with laser dust illumination. A Karcher steam cleaner. A set of professional Koch Chemie chemicals (the kind used in detailing centers for Maybachs). A pack of microfiber towels. Rubber gloves.

  "Operation 'Disinfection'," he announced, pulling on blue nitrile gloves with a characteristic medical snap.

  First—dry cleaning. Dmitry took the vacuum. The powerful cyclone howled. The laser beam on the brush highlighted every speck of dust on the floor with green light. It was like a hunt. He methodically went centimeter by centimeter, sucking up sand, dried clay, and debris. The sound of crumbs rattling inside the container was soothing. It was the sound of destroying chaos. He vacuumed the floor, the mats, the folds of the sofa, and even the ventilation grilles.

  Then—chemicals. Dmitry diluted the Mehrzweckreiniger concentrate—a universal cleaner—in a bucket. It smelled of alkali and citrus. A sharp, chemical, aggressive smell. Dmitry fell to his knees. He didn't use a mop. A mop is for the lazy. True cleanliness is achieved only by hand. He scrubbed the teak board with a stiff sponge, washing the dirt out of the wood pores. The water in the bucket instantly turned black. He changed the water three times. He ran with the bucket to the shower, poured out the sludge, poured clean water, added chemicals, and fell to his knees again.

  "Get out," he hissed, scrubbing an ingrained oil stain near the threshold. "This is my home. My territory."

  When the floor shone, Dmitry moved to the furniture. The leather pilot's seat. He applied Leather Star foam. The white cap of foam began to hiss, drawing dirt out of the expensive Nappa leather. Dmitry waited three minutes and carefully removed the foam with a damp microfiber cloth. The leather became matte, clean, smelling of a new car. "Live," he patted the headrest.

  Then—surfaces. Alcohol. Lots of alcohol. He wiped monitor screens, touch panels, buttons, handles. He destroyed every fingerprint. The windows were polished to invisibility from the inside.

  The final touch. Dmitry took a bottle of Dr. Vranjes Rosso Nobile home perfume from the cabinet. One spritz into the air. The delicate aroma of grapes, berries, and violets floated through the salon, finally killing the smell of swamp and bleach.

  Dmitry stood in the middle of the salon, pulled off his gloves, and threw them into the trash can. His back ached, his knees burned, but his soul sang. Around him was his perfect world again. The teak glowed with warm gold. Chrome sparkled. Leather shone mutely. It was sterile here. Safe. Luxurious.

  "There," he said, surveying his domain with the satisfaction of a perfectionist maniac. "Now a human lives here, not a pig."

  He walked to the climate control panel. Humidity: 45%. Temperature: 22°C. Air quality: Excellent (PM2.5 = 0).

  Dmitry looked at his watch. Cleaning had taken two and a half hours. He was lathered like a horse. "Shower. Again."

  He couldn't put clean clothes on a sweaty body. Ten minutes under hot water. Shaving—perfectly smooth, until it squeaked. Aftershave lotion.

  Dmitry walked out of the bathroom in a white terry robe, feeling like a Roman patrician. He walked to the window. The castle still stood on the hill. Gray, dirty, cold. Dmitry looked at it from the height of his sterile cleanliness. Now he felt his superiority not only technologically but civilizationally. He had washed his world. Now he was ready to descend into their filth, knowing that he had somewhere to return to wash up again.

  "Well then," Dmitry dropped the robe and began to dress.

  This time the choice of clothing was strategic. Not work coveralls. Not home sweatpants. He put on 5.11 tactical pants in sand color (dust shows less on them). A black turtleneck. On top—a light but durable softshell jacket. On his belt—a holster with a pistol (concealed carry, under the jacket). On the other side—a knife. Lowa boots—cleaned, laced military-style.

  He looked in the mirror. A collected, tough man smelling of expensive perfume looked back at him. Not a refugee. Not a victim. The master of the situation.

  Dmitry took sunglasses from the table (even though there was no sun, it hid his eyes and added status). Hung binoculars on his chest. "Computer, full hermetic seal after my exit. Access only by biometrics."

  He was ready. The salon shone. His conscience was clear. Time to go visiting.

  Hello everyone!

  Today is a celebration! We’ve officially crossed the 1,000 views milestone.

  I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who follows the story of Dmitry and his Ark. Your support and engagement mean the world to me. To mark this special event, I’ve released an expanded episode today.

  See you in the World of Two Moons!