Chapter 58
***
A year flew by, and I didn't even notice. Training ate up almost all my time and all my attention. So much so that when I saw the date on the calendar, I couldn't even process it right away. I just stared dumbly at the torn-off page in my hands for almost a minute.
Nineteen seventy-two. I had turned two hundred and ten. Two hundred and ten years in this body. Plus twelve years spent in Vasya-Sensei's world. That makes two hundred and twenty-two... a round number, though. On the other hand, I don't remember my life right up until the age of twelve, so technically, those years should be subtracted from my age. That brings it right back to two hundred and ten years. Either way, it's a "round" date.
Unfortunately, I don't know the exact day of my birth in Sabretooth's skin. As I said before, I don't remember my first twelve years, and there's no one left to ask. However, I perfectly remember the corresponding date from Vasya-Sensei's world. In fact, that's exactly the date I had used as my starting point for the last two centuries: December twelfth. And that was the date written in my Soviet passport.
December twelfth, nineteen seventy-two—I'm turning two hundred and ten. It's a strange feeling.
I set the tear-off calendar page down on the desk in my office at the sports complex and got up from my chair. Training was coming up, and I needed to hurry and change so I wouldn't be late or keep people waiting. After all, a birthday is a personal event, not a public one. Meaning, it's only my personal business; no one else cares about it. It had always been that way. I didn't celebrate my birthdays in this world. I just noted their passing as a given, tacking another year onto my age. And even then, not every year, since there were times when the events around me were too chaotic to waste attention on something as trivial as age. Sometimes I wouldn't think about it for decades, and then I'd just calculate it based on the date.
Today, I remembered. I even tore the page off the calendar earlier than I was supposed to and left it on the desk. That was essentially the end of it.
***
Bruce wasn't in the gym today. He was shooting a new movie, and the filming was eating up the lion's share of his attention.
Bruce being absent meant I had to pull the weight of his groups today. Which, in turn, meant an increased workload and a decrease in "personal" time. Annoying. But not fatal.
By the way, here's a funny little fact: officially, in the Soviet Union, I am considered Bruce Lee's student. One of his senior personal students. After all, he's a much more public and famous figure than Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Victor Ivanovich Creed. Yes, yes, I was promoted to Colonel. A KGB Colonel, to be exact. Completely officially. I even have the corresponding "badge"... lying around somewhere on the desk in my office.
Bruce Lee's student... Yet, I am the official head of the Martial Arts Federation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, not him, despite all his publicity. And the documents are issued under my signature, not his. Just like the certification diplomas for "black" belts. And I'm the one who conducts the grading exams, not Bruce.
Well then, the group is ready, the students are lined up. The traditional bow of greeting, and we can begin.
***
The day, like hundreds before it, flew by unnoticed. The sun dipped below the horizon, and night fell over the city. The final training session of the day was over. I turned off the lights in the gym and locked the door. I went up to my office-apartment to take a shower and change clothes.
The apartment greeted me with silence and emptiness. There was a note on the table: "Don't wait up, I'll be late. Just in case: I've had a good time with you, Victor."
I get it—Suo is out saving the world again somewhere. I sighed. Well, someone has to do it, so why not her?
I spent an hour cooking a hearty dinner. I ate my portion and left some for my wife on a specially enchanted "stasis table."
I didn't feel like sleeping. I didn't feel like going to train either.
I got dressed, shoved my wallet into the pocket of my fur-lined leather jacket, put my badge and passport into the other pocket, turned off the lights in the apartment, locked the door, and went downstairs to the front desk, where I handed in the key.
***
Large, fluffy flakes of white snow drifted slowly and smoothly down from the sky. They settled on my bare hair, landed on my eyebrows, and tried to catch onto a mustache. The latter completely failed due to its absolute nonexistence. A light, fifteen-hour stubble was clearly insufficient for the snowflakes to cling to.
A very light frost—somewhere around minus two degrees on the scale invented by Celsius—pinched slightly at the tip of my nose and the tips of my ears. The fresh, newly settled snow crunched softly under the soles of my soft, pointed shoes. The yellow light of the streetlamps, sharply outlined in cones due to the falling snow, added a fairy-tale charm to the surrounding world. The air was easy and pleasant to breathe. There was no wind, and the steam from my breath rose straight up, quickly dissipating into the surrounding air.
I took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. Naturally, I didn't see any stars. Firstly, this is Moscow: what stars are there besides the ones on the Kremlin? And secondly, it's snowing, and the sky is overcast.
I exhaled with pleasure, shook the snow from my hair, and strolled unhurriedly down the street.
It's the seventies, and Moscow is already a city that never sleeps. Streams of cars, people hurrying somewhere, the glow of signs, streetlamps, and storefronts. Janitors and road workers, militiamen and beat cops...
I walked light, without any kind of bag, package, or string bag. My jacket was unzipped halfway down my chest over a pressed, light-colored shirt that was also unbuttoned at the top couple of buttons. I wore black trousers and "crocodile skin" shoes. The belt with its shiny chrome buckle was hidden beneath my jacket.
My hands rested in the side pockets of my jacket; my gait was light and relaxed, my posture straight. My gaze wandered over the storefronts, cars, signs, and people.
I was just out for a walk. Breathing the fresh air (well, as fresh as it gets in a major city). I paid absolutely no attention to the road or my route, since I could instantly return to where I started at any given moment.
About half an hour later, my feet led me to an outdoor ice skating rink. Teenagers and young adults were skating on it under the glow of the streetlamps. I could hear laughter, cheerful squeals, the scrape of skates on ice, and joyous voices.
A patrol consisting of one militiaman and three thirteen-year-old vigilantes with red armbands on their right shoulders stood watch near the rink.
Fourteen years old... Kids from the first generation of those raised on the Erskine diet. Superhumans with super-capabilities.
It made perfect sense. A skating rink is a public place where representatives of what amounts to two different sentient species gather simultaneously: those under fourteen and those over. Conflicts are more than possible. That's exactly why the militia and the vigilantes are here. The vigilantes are the most responsible, patriotically minded, the top of their class, the best in their Pioneer organization... and kids from the Super generation who have passed the mandatory hand-to-hand combat course at the All-Union Federation of Martial Arts, holding at least a red belt in Jeet Kune Do. Three of them should be more than enough to put any hooligan from their own generation in their place. Or to absolutely obliterate two or three companies of soldiers who don't belong to that generation.
The militiaman should probably feel uncomfortable and a little scared standing next to such monsters, but: they are children, and he is an adult. And they were raised right. They listen to him, they learn from him. They hang on his every word.
Accordingly, the militiaman himself is either a Komsomol member or a Communist. The requirements for those allowed to work with "super" vigilantes are incredibly strict. Even stricter than the selection process for the "supers" themselves. Primarily focusing on moral character. Rot has no place near the "sprouts of the future world"!
And here is the result: laughter, joyful squeals, cheerful voices, and serious kids with red armbands and bright eyes... Well, Comrade Dzhugashvili, it looks like we're actually making something happen here, doesn't it? Seems we haven't been working in vain...
***
I was sitting on a bench in some Moscow park near a working streetlamp. There wasn't a soul around; snowflakes fell slowly and smoothly. It was nearing midnight. I wasn't thinking about anything, just watching the snow swirl and fall.
A couple of meters to my left, the fiery ring of a portal opened, instantly causing a disturbance in the air and a sharp gust of wind due to the temperature difference between one side of it and the other.
Suo stepped out of the portal in her "magical" attire. The portal closed, causing another gust of wind that sent snowflakes swirling. Suo walked over and sat down on the bench next to me. I lifted my left arm, and she snuggled comfortably under my armpit.
"Happy Birthday, honey," she said quietly.
"Thank you," I replied just as quietly. "Did you save the world?"
"Mhm," she shrugged slightly. "Otherwise we wouldn't be talking right now."
I sighed. We just sat there in silence for a while.
Nothing has really changed since that memorable conversation over a year ago. And what could have changed? Suo continues to guard our Dimension, and I continue to teach kids how to fight... That's how things are for us. Just a normal family life...
We sat like that in silence for another ten minutes, and then the park bench was empty. All that was left was the melted imprint of two people on it and the snow slowly drifting down from the dark sky.
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