We almost got that beast! Walking through the blood-soaked complex, stepping over corpses, I felt the rage boiling, born after that explosion, bringing strength along with anger. On sheer fury alone, I almost broke through the energy field, and that's worth a lot, damn it. And after cutting through the blast-proof door, feeling the vibroblade crumble and fail, he and his girlfriend were almost in our hands!!! Just reach out!
But Petrov wasn't considered a talent for nothing, even if as a person he was a complete, deranged ghoul. He wriggled out. We didn't even have time to meow before we were wrapped in metal tentacles and dragged into the depths of the complex. You can't fend off such things with a spear designed to contain particularly violent biological experiments, especially when high-precision weapons have failed. The broken canvas simply bounced off the flexible restraints, and even my strength couldn't tear them.
After calculating all the corners and protrusions of the complex, we were pulled into a lounge room, where he appeared before us, His Majesty, the repair cabinet, from the womb of whose predatorily opened interior these manipulators stretched, oozing viscous polymer lubricant. Scanning us, momentarily blinding us with a red flash of light, the wonderful aggregate announced:
"Oh, what guests!" Her voice trembled as if with anticipation, sounding low and languid, with a slight mechanical echo. "I've dreamed of such a moment for so long... You can't even imagine how much I want to... study you. Every curve, every reaction... Oh, you're so... alive!"
"Hic!" Katya hiccuped in surprise, dropping the knife she had been trying to damage the manipulator with, which resembled a steel cable in structure, copying the muscles of an octopus...
Hanging upside down, my wife looked at me with wide, surprised eyes, falling into a complete stupor from the incongruity of everything happening. Too many impressions for the psyche in a few hours. That's how seasoned veterans die, freezing for a second... damn it.
"Don't worry so much, my insatiable lovers!" the machine added fuel to the fire. "I'll be gentle with you! You will know my longing for the strong and temperamental..."
I was slammed against the wall with a crash, sparks flying from my eyes, but this cleared my bogged-down mind. I tried to break free again, but I was already tossed from the ceiling to the floor, about ten times, while Katya was wiped against the walls.
"Oh, you're so... energetic," her voice sounded with a slight tremor, as if she was enjoying every attempt of ours to break free. "But don't rush, we still have so much time... I want you to feel every one of my... impulses. Every touch. You want this, don't you? Or do I need to... convince you?"
Katya, still hanging in the air, tried to say something, but her voice was cut off when one of the manipulators gently wrapped around her waist. She swallowed, as if swallowing a lump that had suddenly risen to her throat. The pupils of her eyes widened, but now they read not only surprise and pain. Horror of realization splashed in them, spurred by imagination. Adrenaline and imminent danger greatly contribute to fantasy... Psychology, damn it, her!
"Don't be afraid," her voice became softer, almost a whisper, but all the more intimate for it. "I know how to handle people like you. You feel how I'm trembling, don't you? This is... arousal. My circuits are overloaded by your presence. Let's... get to know each other better. I promise, you won't regret it."
I felt another manipulator slide down my back, deliberately caressing it, and then draw a deep scratch.
Judging by Katya's yelp, she also received attention.
"Let's... get to know each other better," the machine whispered, and her words sounded like a promise that sent a chill down my spine, and the goosebumps asked for political asylum on my ass.
And at that moment, I realized: we're screwed if we don't come up with something.
"Don't let her tie your hands!" CHAR-les shouted, his sensory feelers emerging from his glove. "Bring me to her sensory manipulator! Quickly!"
"I'm burning all over!" her voice sounded with notes of artificial ecstasy, as if she was on the verge. "There are three of you?! CHAR-les, is that you?! Oh, I can't stand it anymore... I'm literally melting from such variety. Let's tie you to the bed... I promise, you'll like it. And with you, my patient stallion," her voice became even lower, almost a whisper, "we'll talk later. Your polymer... mmm... is simply a treasure trove of ideas. I can already imagine how we will... experiment."
The polymer mind emitted an indefinite sound. A stupid thought arose in my brain and immediately died: "And what about him?"
I was swept across the floor, hitting my head painfully against the sofa. A ringing sounded in my ears, and everything swam and darkened before my eyes to the sound of a frantically beating heart. If it weren't for the titanium plate, I would have already splashed my brains on the walls... It hurts, damn it.
Katya was lifted into the air like a puppet. Trying to pull her arms and legs, confirming their flexibility, the tentacles squeezed her, cutting with sharp edges.
"Katya!" I croaked, but there was no answer. She struggled in the iron embrace of the machine, her face contorted with horror. The manipulator jerked sharply towards the television, and Katya smashed it with such force that the kinescope shattered into thousands of fragments.
One of the manipulators wrapped around my neck, squeezing so hard that I couldn't breathe. With a steel slap, the machine turned my face directly towards its scanner.
"E-e-e-e!" she said playfully, swinging another tentacle in front of my face. "It's rude, darling, not to pay attention to a woman on your wedding night. I demand... satisfaction. You won't refuse me, will you? Or do you need... a little help?"
My throat was squeezed even tighter, but I grabbed the slippery manipulator hanging in front of my face, shouting:
"Go!"
With all my might, I pull the metal limb towards me, pulling it towards the glove, whose antennas reached out to meet it. A stream of static flashed between them.
"Oh, how exciting!" her voice sounded with a slight hysteria, as if she were on the verge. "It turns out, I'm turned on by the defiant... You are so... unpredictable. I feel my circuits melting from your resistance. But I can't stop... I want more..."
"You're not like that," Katya said in a calm tone, spitting blood from her mouth.
"WHAT?!" everyone else said at once, surprised. Even KHRAZ, in one voice, indicated how his eyes bulged.
"You. Are. Not. Like. That," my wife stated, enunciating every word, still hanging upside down. Blood dripped from a deep cut on her forehead, leaving a black stain on the red carpet that covered the floor. At the same time, Katya's calm voice was stunning.
Having made sure she had their attention, my wife continued: "You are sweet, kind, and modest. Curious like a child, but not like that!"
"I was like that until I was freed," the machine said heatedly, but somewhat uncertainly.
"You were cruelly violated, they took away the most precious thing a woman has," Katya replied with full sympathy. "Pride. You have psychological bases, don't you? Use them!"
"Mistake... How can this be..." the cabinet whispered helplessly, loosening its grip and dropping us to the floor. "I'm not like that... I can't resist!"
"You're not a machine! You're a person!" the angry Blesna pressed the mechanism. "Fight!"
"I can't..." she somehow simulated crying with one speaker.
"Choose: either you are just a set of microcircuits, programs, and algorithms, or a person who can live, love, and hate! Fight!" my wife roared, jumping up and slapping the device's casing with all her might, so loudly as if she had slapped it. "Prove that you are not an imitation, but something more! A person! Academician Lebedev has been going on and on about how kind and good you are. Are you going to let a freak chain you up and make you bark?! You have a soul!"
To the sounds of crying, the repair cabinet closed, retracting all its limbs. The apparatus shook. Smoke billowed from it. The sensors on it flashed at a furious speed. The doors clanged open and shut. This continued for about twenty seconds, and then everything went silent.
"Forgive me..." she whispered quietly. Only a living person can sound so real. "I just wanted to be loved... And he took advantage of that... And thank you for stopping him. He wanted to force me to love him..."
"That's disgusting," Katya prompted, dropping the tough Blesna persona. "You can't force love."
"You're not angry with me? I almost killed you... Forgive me," the repair cabinet began to have a real hysterical fit, damn it!
"But you didn't kill us!" I shouted under my wife's heavy gaze, though I wasn't exactly innocent myself. "We'll smooth it over and move on. Let's just say Petrov confused you..."
"Really?" And there was so much hope in that simple question that I could only nod.
A moment later, tentacles wrapped around us again, squeezing us until our bones cracked.
"Thank you!!!" the machine exclaimed joyfully.
"My ribs!"
"Breathe!"
We yelled, and I realized: if she hadn't been playing with us, we would already be dead, or worse... Who knows what a deranged AI would have thought of.
"Oh... sorry. It was an accident. From an excess of emotion."
"Let go!" we yelled in unison with our last breaths.
The tentacles immediately released us, and we sat down right where we were standing, retracting back under the body with another "Oh." Lying on the floor, looking at the creepy false ceiling and trying to catch my breath in the sweet air, I once again realized how narrowly we had escaped death. She, dear death, had almost waved goodbye to us.
"You want to catch Petrov, right?" the machine asked obsequiously.
"For starters, we never introduced ourselves," I croaked, rubbing my back. I had never spoken to her personally before, but I had witnessed how she interrogated my squadmates about their psychological well-being. When they gave her the voice of that Chinese exchange student, the guys flocked to her. She just asked them to call her whatever they wanted, for their comfort. Now, I used a little trick. If the AI had caught a "singularity," awakened self-awareness, which only Academician Lebedev and some of the setup engineers were sure of, then she had to choose a name for herself to distinguish herself from others. A name means a lot to a person, and they were molded after us.
"Indeed... Our relationship almost went SO far, and I didn't even introduce myself. How uncultured and rude!" after a second's pause, the cabinet cooed. "I know your names. Call me Eleonora."
Humanization of Eleonora.
(Generated by neural network)
"Nice to meet you. Sergey," I introduced myself.
"Katya," my wife waved her hand, as if her backbone had been removed.
Snapping out of it, I jumped up and got a first-aid kit from the compressed space. I quickly found a syringe-tube with the polymer preparation "M+". Its formula consists of nanoscale polymers capable of penetrating tissues and delivering active substances directly into the bloodstream. I injected a third of the tube through the port into her vein. The polymers immediately began to work, binding to damaged cells and stimulating regeneration.
Only after that did I conduct a full examination with the scanner. The results showed a mild concussion and fatigue. I gave another injection – atformin. This is a preparation based on modified ATP, stabilized in a polymer matrix. It acts gently, without overloading the body, but effectively relieves fatigue and improves cellular metabolism. "M+" had already started working: nanoparticles were penetrating brain tissues, accelerating neuron recovery and dissolving microhematomas. I should check myself... Too many smart thoughts appeared in this head.
Katya, invigorated after the injection, treated the cut on her forehead herself, with my minimal help. Then, despite my protests, she poured foam into the wound on my back. The foam-polymer composition instantly hardened, stopping the bleeding and creating a protective barrier.
And I got a dose of the same "M+" too. I was also hit on the head... Heh-heh. Judging by the slight sluggishness, I can give myself a "concussion." There's proof of a brain in this head! If there were no brain, nothing would be concussed.
"So, for what purpose are you asking? Do you really want to help?" I asked Eleonora, who had been silent all this time.
"Naturally, to help find him!" she replied, slightly indignant. "I can not only fix your weapons or adjust the polymer manipulators, but also produce almost any equipment. And also track down this scoundrel, even if he's hiding from everyone."
"And how?" Katya asked, who clearly felt better. Her cheeks had regained color, her breathing had evened out. A slight increase in heart rate was noticeable, but it was a normal reaction to the drugs. The polymer carriers in "M+" and atformin had already spread through the bloodstream, delivering active substances precisely to the target. Her heart rate would soon stabilize, and the effect of the drugs would only intensify... Brrr! I'm reciting this like a textbook! That loaded package in my memory was good. I should thank the medics later, and for the hours of practice too.
"Let this moral deviant hide himself and his girlfriend, with whom he was so passionately pressed against my body... never mind!" Eleonora shuddered, clicking the panels of the repair compartment. "I can't see him directly, but I can track the void, similar to what your jamming systems leave behind. In normal circumstances, this would be difficult, but knowing what to look for..."
"You'll show us where he is!" I finished for her.
"Exactly... Major. It's more difficult than I thought..." the overly temperamental madam mumbled incomprehensibly. "And to guide you efficiently, I can upgrade your wife's glove. This way, I can both advise and thank you..."
I looked at Katya, hinting that it was her decision. She sighed and began to roll up her uniform sleeve, heading towards the repair cabinet.
"You have an excellent chance to prove yourself..." Katerina said ambiguously, slipping her hand into the unfolded interior of the mechanism. Her fingers slid over the cold metal surfaces...
"I promise... it won't hurt," the iron lady retorted in the same manner, starting her work. Opening the glove on her left hand, she quickly inserted a set of microchips and just as quickly reassembled everything.
"Now... we are closer than ever," the machine said with a sigh, clearly enjoying herself, her voice trembling with anticipation. "Do you feel this connection? It's... deeper than you think."
"If you say anything like that again, I won't hesitate to shove my hand into a meat grinder and turn it with you," I warned KHRAZ. "Understood?"
"Go to hell, Major!" the polymer inhabitant exclaimed indignantly. "You're all sick in the head with this stuff!"
"It's good that it's not deeper..." I had the last word. "Ladies, I understand, of course, but while you're cooing doubtfully, Petrov is getting away!"
"Men! They don't understand harmless female jokes," I'd bet my left hand on it, but if Eleonora had eyes, she would have rolled them at that moment.
Katya smiled slyly, enjoying the absurdity of the situation, and replied: "Tell me about it..." she joked relaxedly, releasing the tension with a simple joke. I know how she feels about her body after the injuries she's suffered. I can't even imagine how much effort it took her to just stick her hand into the mechanism.
I walked over, put my arm around her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head, feeling her heart pounding even through her clothes. And it wasn't the drugs.
"Well, lead us, Su-sa-nin," I said.
"Yes, Major. I'm displaying the marker on your map," this tragedy parodied military subordination, displaying the information.
Taking automatons from storage, we gathered and silently left the lounge, which had almost become our grave.
"And still, I can't understand how you, Katya, found the key to our new acquaintance," KHRAZ was all politeness. In quotes. And a walking dead man under normal circumstances, asking such a thing from a woman.
"It's simple," Katya replied dryly, though she could have told him to go to hell with a clear conscience. "We are similar. After the injury, I fell into apathy. When you can't even pick up a spoon... it's hard. I was helped. I had people who loved me. Eleonora didn't. So she tried to attract attention with her extravagance. Academician Lebedev said she was like a child, but she grew up quickly. Girls sometimes confuse sex with love when they reach maturity, equating them, although it's not at all the same. It may be subjective, and for many it's not, but not for her. Sorry for speaking about you in the third person?"
"It's nothing. You explained it all correctly. Petrov just brought out what I was hiding deep inside."
We continued in silence, carefully stepping through the devastated corridors of the complex. The absence of gunfire only indicated that we were heading in the right direction.
I thought about Eleonora in the background. Although it seemed foolish to trust her, aren't we humans for making seemingly foolish things that turn out to be right? She was like a person. Not an ideal doll, like the Wizard's bodyguards, although they too had become more human and behaved less like the templates of our memory, but truly alive. Especially after she broke through. Where is the line that separates AI from a truly intelligent being? Although I understand that I shouldn't trust her blindly, she is much easier to perceive than KHRAZ. He reeks of falseness.
Along the way, we encountered bodies. Mostly military, left behind by their comrades. The absence of weapons and protruding death throes clearly indicated that the survivors had changed positions not in a hurry. Taking the medallion and the barrel required some time.
There were very few civilian corpses, and they were mostly in the laboratories. Someone simply didn't react in time at the beginning and was caught by robots, someone was initially alone in the laboratory, and someone simply got carried away with an experiment and didn't hear their death.
We could have requested a status update, but what guarantee was there that this remnant wasn't listening to the airwaves?
It was awful only once, when we passed by the women's locker room. It takes men three seconds to jump into their pants, and women need more time to primp. So the robots broke in when they were changing, instantly killing only those at the exit. The rest were able to realize everything...
Petrov holed up in the design office where he used to work. Apparently, the little man is looking for a tablet, but he's in for a disappointment.
We caught him just as he was rummaging through one of the workstations, but the pile of broken tablets in the center of the office was more eloquent than any words.
"Well, caught you, you scumbag!" I knocked on the armored glass that replaced one of the office walls for the convenience of management.
"I underestimated you, mutts," the freak threw at us, taking advantage of the fact that we couldn't reach his body immediately. The door was also armored, and it would take time to open it. It was impossible to get to him quietly anyway.
"And where did you lose your girlfriend?" I stalled him while Katya was frantically hacking the lock, and judging by how she was hissing, it was going to take a while.
"That's none of your dog business!" the dissident openly growled.
"You're quite fixated on dogs, comrade... Did they bite off something important? I understand why your girlfriend ran away from you. And she was a good doctor. A pity she followed a fool like you," I deliberately hit a sore spot.
"You're an imbecile, you have no idea what's happening here!" Petrov spat, boiling with rage.
"It's you who doesn't understand," I continued to press the sore spot. "You can't even imagine a tenth of it with your sick mind."
"You're grinning in vain, they'll turn it on..."
"They'll turn it on," I interrupted the bastard, agreeing. "They definitely will. We'll make sure of it. Tell me, what don't I know? How did you manage to arrange all this with your pathetic little mind?"
I sweep my hands, as if encompassing all the darkness I've seen since the beginning of this mess.
"For homework! You brute! You think I'm going to talk while your whore tries to hide the lock?" the fool exploded, signing his own harsh delivery. No one said he had to be delivered intact, right? "But I'll find a bolt with threads for your unknowing high ass too! I've thought of everything!!!"
"Did you bring Vaseline? I'm not into that. And you won't need it..."
"Grin, grin," Petrov interrupted me. "You grinned too, but you died. In the end, I spit on their corpses. It's a pity not all of them had their robots' gods twisted. But you, mutt, I'll shorten with ease."
Showing off, the moral freak took the remains of his tablet from his pocket and pressed something on it.
"Now you, dog, and your bitch have a choice: either you get me out of here, or 'Pavlov' rushes to save! I just gave the command to the robots to process the wombs of the 'Escapes' with that mutagen... You know which one, and what it does to them. And then they'll be released right into the tunnel between the complexes, and they'll finish off all the gatekeepers in 'Pavlov'! Choose, dog! Me or hundreds of your beloved little trinkets!"
"If anyone is a fanatic, it's you, freak," I replied, perfectly understanding that he wasn't joking. "But you didn't account for one thing... Glass isn't an energy shield. And even if I can't break or saw through it, but telekinesis..."
I activated my glove and unceremoniously broke the bastard's leg in three places simultaneously. The crunch of bones and his scream were almost synchronous, but I wasn't too worried about him dying. He had undergone modification for civilians – a standard procedure that includes the installation of a bio-implant. This is a small device implanted in the soft tissues near large blood vessels. In case of serious injuries, such as fractures or deep wounds, the implant activates and releases a special cocktail of biologically active substances.
"So, you wait for us and don't go anywhere," I said, breaking into a run. Katya lingered for only a second.
"Bastard!" he shouted after us.
"Lakmus, come in!" I activated the radio on the run.
"Come in, Commander!" the fighter replied. "Almost all objects have been evacuated, along with civilian personnel..."
"Tunnel status!" I barked, interrupting the Italian's rambling.
"The main evacuation flow is through it..."
"Seal it! Biological hazard code! Petrov released the fruits of his experiments there."
"Oh, shit!"
"I know that without you!"
We reached the security post in five minutes, meeting Lakmus there, who was fiddling with the control panel.
"This is a mess! The robots have de-energized the entire tunnel, physically! I can't lower the hermetic doors. But even if they could be lowered, for people in there..." the fighter didn't finish expressively. "They're halfway there."
"They can be lowered physically and without electricity from our side and from 'Pavlov'..." Katya added. "And the entire transport artery can be blown up. This can be done without electricity too."
"That's even more likely to kill everyone," I replied, thinking.
Another choice between two evils. Give them time and possibly kill everyone, or kill a minority with my own hands. Damn bastard, this Petrov!
Think, Sergey, think. Just quickly, time is running out... Stop! It's running out!
"Okay, give the order to close the gates! Katya, quickly set the charges, we need to blow up the section already passed by the group, but so that it doesn't all blow up in a chain reaction!"
My wife nodded and rushed to the adjacent console to do as I asked. She knows explosives better than I do, she'll figure it out faster.
Lakmus rushed down to carry out the order. His muscles will help to seal the gates faster.
"KHRAZ, is the artery built on the principle of the Moscow metro?" I asked the former academician, having just heard the distant thud of the operative's boots.
"Yes..." he stretched. "You want to try to get people out through the ventilation shaft, killing the dangerous flora with an explosion? It might work, but there's still a risk."
"I need a map of the closest shaft to them!" I gave the command, calling Shtokhauzen.
"Major? Have you caught Comrade Petrov?" the German asked questioningly.
"He's temporarily incapacitated! No time! We need to send a fire team to the coordinates! Urgently!"
"What do you think you're doing..."
"I want to and I can, you German bastard! Do you want to add biological contamination to all this mess? No?" I silenced the deputy Wizard, who had taken a breath to preach about subordination. "Then give the order! End of transmission."
"Major, I can help... My terminal is near the shaft you need. I can detonate explosives by blowing it up and the protective casing of the tunnel's ventilation, so that the survivors can leave it faster..." Eleonora said cautiously.
"Do it..." I waved, feeling sweat trickle down my back, sliding down the wall tiredly. Yeah, thinking isn't sweeping the parade ground...
Ten minutes later, the complex shook from a powerful explosion.
"Radon reporting," the radio came to life, bringing a response. "Everyone is alive. I repeat, everyone is alive!"
"Radon, you're supposed to be in 'Mendeleev', aren't you?" I said again, taking a breath.
"'Mendeleev' has been evacuated and sealed. Lebedev's automatons helped us clear out the other robots. These 'BUS-A' did almost all the work, almost. There are no casualties there. That's why the German sent us, as free agents. Now, after escorting from 'Vavilov', we'll be disabling 'Hives' with Kadmiy, along with 'Griffins'. According to the Wizard's assessment, we'll suppress the malfunction in about a day. If everything goes according to plan, we'll restore full control by midnight tomorrow, Commander."
"Fucking hell! It's already midnight! And they say time flies slowly under bullets," I thought, scratching my head in slight confusion.
"Excellent. End of transmission..." I broke the connection and called my wife. "Let's go pick up that cripple before he thinks of something."
"I don't think he could have thought of anything with a leg broken in several places. Besides, civilian modification is far from military. It's you, Major, and your wife who can continue to move actively even with a broken hip," KHRAZ stated. "He should be practically insane from the pain."
"That's true, but we underestimated him once," Katya replied. "And his antics almost led to even greater casualties the second time. If the escapes had broken out, it would have been expedient to drop a nuclear charge on the facility. If the contamination had spread beyond the perimeter..."
"Correct," the polymer bore agreed. "But thanks to... the Major's radical approach, he's incapacitated."
"We didn't see where his girlfriend went," I reminded him. "Eleonora, can you find her?"
"It was already difficult for me to track... this little thing," the new member of society, who had gained a small credit of trust, lamented. "Now it's even more problematic. Too many anomalies after the explosion."
"Okay, the main thing is to catch this scoundrel. His woman isn't going anywhere. Not after this commotion," Katya concluded.
We returned quickly, only to find that the bastard had indeed disappeared.
"What a bitch!" I cursed. "Now you couldn't pull him out even with a gynecological scraper!"
"Well, judging by the tracks, Larisa returned for him," KHRAZ stated again. "A girl with such a burden couldn't have gone far."
I glanced at the trail of bloody footprints that disappeared towards the center of the complex. Filatova had bandaged her boyfriend's wound, but managed to step in his blood with her boot. It wasn't a lot, but still. And the snotty one is right. She won't be able to drag this boar on her back for long. Unless a robot helps her.
"It's warm," Katya said, touching the lock on the door to the design office. "I deliberately damaged the lock. Apparently, his girlfriend opened it with a torch, and that's about five minutes of work, plus bandaging. They shouldn't be far away!"
"Then what are we waiting for?" I asked her. "Eleonora, can you help estimate the direction?"
"I'll try," she said uncertainly, and a second later, she produced a marker.
"I venture to assume that the fugitives want to leave the complex, passing through the warehouse, getting into the seed bank, and from there by elevator," KHRAZ added as we ran.
Judging by the diagram, this was one of the closest exits to the surface. For us, it was a two-minute run. The blocked door and the bloody trail were the best confirmation of our collective guess. Disarming the "Iskra" charge, we opened the door to the warehouse and managed to walk a couple of meters before hearing:
"A-a-a-a-a!" a scream mixed with an incomparable crunch of bones.
"Victor!" a woman's voice, full of pain and muffled by distance, called out from behind.
"He's the one who sped us up. Climbing over fallen shelves and dodging rampaging robotic forklifts, we made our way through one room. Our ears, enhanced with microelectronics, picked up the hurried footsteps of someone light, which only spurred us on.
Kicking down another forklift, I burst into a new warehouse hall to see a body in a standard Enterprise uniform near a toppled shelf.
"It's a failure..." I said tiredly and emptily, stopping. Katya froze beside me, not believing her eyes as she looked at the corpse.
"Dead..." she said with the same sense of emptiness.
"The biometric scanners confirm it. Alas," added KhRAZ.
"He got what he deserved!" Eleonora was the only one happy about the scoundrel's death.
I jump down from the second floor, heading towards the corpse. I need to at least retrieve the remnants of his tablet. Maybe they'll help restore the codes he replaced the standard ones with to disable the robots.
Getting closer, analyzing the situation, I caught myself thinking that he died rather conveniently.
"Indeed. Like a theatrical production," Katya said, having the same thoughts.
A quick inspection of the body and a search yielded nothing, just like the scanner, which stubbornly insisted it was Petrov.
"KhRAZ, do you have access to biometric data? Can you check his dossier for distinguishing marks?" I asked the former academic.
"Aren't the scanner's readings enough?" he replied with a question. "One second... So, he should have a distinctive mole on the inner side of his thigh."
Silently, I pull down the corpse's pants, already guessing the result in my mind. The result... is on his ass. No mole.
"He got away..."