Abandoned World: The Awakening

There were more questions than answers. And the possible answers clearly did not suit either Charlie Haddock or those who were currently investigating the case — the security section. Tannet always performed his duties well — he didn't have to give any additional explanations as to why this or that person had to be put behind bars and then released, if necessary, or held further. He had no questions at all. That was his tremendous upside. But, apparently, the same side made itself known when it was necessary to find out something, as in this case, for example. He didn't even have a clue. He dug for information mindlessly and without even a clue. He just asked everything that came into his head, guided by the main goal — not to say too much, and not to give anyone a chance to find out what was happening on the station. He wouldn't reveal secrets, but he wouldn't learn anything new either. His chief Harry Sterling was even dumber — all he did was sit in his chair and think about how important it was to keep visibly calm and under no circumstances not to bring the matter to panic. That was all he had in his head. As if, if he adhered to this principle, he could live a thousand years without any problems.

You can't get much out of them, Haddock thought. What they're giving now is about the maximum expected. It's foolish to hope for more. So we'll have to find out for ourselves. Not wait for the plague to come for him. Strange as it may seem, that possibility didn't seem impossible to him either.

And now he had three files on his desk: Henry Thunder, Savannah Blaze, Reagan Shadow. Two men and one woman. And the most horrifying was the woman's — the camera footage showed her slashing her left breast in an attempt to cut out her mammary gland, then stabbing her left thigh

near an artery. Thunder was fundamentally different from Shadow in that Shadow also pierced her own eye. And in the end, this satanic way of injuring themselves to death was one of the few facts that tied them all together — they all destroyed their left side with a sharp object in their right hand. All of them did it systematically and as if they felt no pain.

The first, Henry Thunder, did it more than five months ago, in his apartment, having a good dinner and watching a movie. The movie was a comedy, Twins, starring Arnold Schwarzenneger and Danny De Vito. After that, he slashed himself with a kitchen knife, finishing the job by sticking it in his neck. There was absolutely nothing to it. He was well regarded in the service and was even up for promotion.

The second, Savannah Blaze, killed herself on the job. She, like Shadow, was studying the blueprints for various models of nuclear reactors, on a mission to build back-up nuclear power plants in case the main ones failed. She hadn't been away from her desk for nearly an hour and a half before she'd started chopping herself up with the penknife that had been in her personal purse, and she hadn't been able to see anything that might have motivated her to do so, simply because it wasn't there. It was worth noting that she hadn't been able to forge something out of her chest with all her efforts. This suggested that the action was more spontaneous than deliberate — if she felt no pain, and her mind was lost, then the decision to do it must have succeeded, since she'd started it.

This peculiarity gave rise in Heddock's mind to the idea that all their actions of self-mutilation of their left side carried more symbolic than any practical meaning — they didn't want to do anything fundamental to their left side of the body other than torture it. And, apparently, the answer to everything lay in this.

The third, Reagan Shadow, merely repeated the actions of the previous ones: doing something calmly and casually, and then killing himself with a sharp object just as casually. The only difference was the pierced eye, which once again suggested that all this was just a prelude, a kind of demonstration before taking his own life. Apparently, the eye was as unimportant to Reagan as breasts are to Savannah. He probably could have left it alone, but by some random chance the lot fell on him.

Heddock put the files aside, leaned back in his chair, and looked around his office: although the office was clearly the largest of its kind on the entire station, and the panoramic window the bulkiest of any window installed anywhere, there was no luxury in his office. Absolutely nothing that could be called art or frills. Everything was strict and to the point. It was the elders who liked to make statues of pressed regolith or purple robes over their overalls. He didn't need any of that stuff

— it was just trinkets that could only attract children. Or fools like the Elders. The main thing is power, and now there is a process at the station, which is not controlled by this power at all.