Song By Unreality

Chapter 10

"Tea or coffee?"

"Black tea! And with sweets! I love tea parties in good company!"

(from Rina's interview for cooking program 'Chef')

"Questions or news?" Gennadiy Sergeevich immediately asked when Nikolai called him at seven in the morning.

The colonel's voice sounded cheerful and loud, as if he was not talking on the phone, but giving commands on the parade ground. Nikolai involuntarily smiled and replied:

"Both."

The coffee machine made a noise all over the apartment, grinding grains, and then snuggled comfortably, pouring a hot drink into a cup. Nikolai's morning began not with an alarm clock ringing and not with a cool shower even in winter, but with this rumble and the aroma of coffee filling the kitchen.

"Something is spinning in several places at once. I checked some things personally, some things were confirmed to me," Nikolai said, approaching the window with a cup. "This 'something' has been in suspended animation for a long time, and now it seems to have woken up."

Gennadiy Sergeevich listened in silence to the story about the study, and then asked Nikolai to throw off the coordinates of the places where the activity was detected.

"We'll split the work," the colonel added. "Today I have a free day. Shusha's class was canceled, so I bought groceries yesterday. I wanted to ask a beautiful lady out on a date, but I thought what should she, young and beautiful, do with me, an old man."

"Come on, Gennadiy Sergeevich, 'old'!" Nikolai laughed. "It's better to invite your beautiful lady on a date, I'll go around all the suspicious areas myself."

"No, Kolya, our business is urgent, so I will go to one of the places," Gennadiy Sergeevich objected. "What else? Any other questions?"

"There are a lot of questions, and we are looking for answers to them. What happened that made our 'cthulhu' wake up? Why is everything happening so fast and right now? We need to dig in this direction - to look for the cause of the anomalies."

"Think, Kolya, think, you're brainy. And I will be your 'legs' today. Call me when you have news," Gennadiy Sergeevich said and said goodbye.

Vika dyed her hair and nails again – this time in bright yellow and, accordingly, tights under a short hoodie dress picked up the same shade. Nikolai froze in amazement at the door, even though he should have been used to the changes in the assistant's image for a long time. But lately Vika has been making frequent changes: she used to wear every color for a couple of weeks.

"Is it not harmful?" Nikolai blurted out instead of greeting.

"What is 'harmful'?" the assistant asked, looking up from the monitor.

"Do you dye your hair so often? Won't they spoil?"

"If they go bad, I'll shave them off," Vika replied with the same imperturbable calmness and involuntarily made Nikolai shudder.

He still wasn't ready for her bald skull.

"Hello to you, too, boss," she greeted him with a slight sarcasm in response to his confusion.

"Hello," Nikolai shook his head and went to the room.

"Wait, Kolya! I found something interesting here."

"Maybe coffee first?"

"Didn't you drink at home?" Vika grinned.

"Pest! Okay, show me what you found," Nikolai gave up with a sigh and barely restrained the reproach that he, unlike some, didn't do hair and nails at night, but worked.