Who are we? Thriller, short stories. Юрий Белк

in his garage on the knee of the entire transmission and the engine itself. The second person never drove a car, he was even afraid of them. At work, although he always needed a car to install the air conditioners, he always had a partner who was also a driver.

      One wanted to return to the city and sleep for a day, the second-to leave the city faster and not sleep for the first day.

      At some point, Ruslan realized that he was sitting on the riverbank with a spinning rod in his hands. There was no bite, but it was so quiet that he wanted to go to sleep so badly that he put the fishing rod on the stand and began to throw himself in the backpacks, feelingout something that looked like a mug, coffee, matches, a pot, and so on. The list of things necessary for making coffee turned out to be so large that Ruslan at some point simply dumped out of both travel bags all the things on the grass, which was still wet with dew.

      Looking around and not finding a can of coffee, Ruslan clenched his teeth and, taking a deep breath, exhaled slowly.

      – How so?" Well, like, put it in a bag, how so? – said Ruslan very quietly, so that he would not be overheard by accident and the fish would not be scared off.

      The fish had never pecked once in all the time he'd been ashore. It was very strange, because on the surface from time to time it appeared and playfully dived back.

      – What kind of place is this?" On the map, everything was clear, here is a river, tut forest, here are small foothills. It's strange, because of the location, but I don't remember how we got here, maybe I fell asleep on the way, or rather, I dozed off. It's been so long since I've been out in nature that I'm not even used to it. "Half out loud, half to himself," thought Ruslan.

      He rewound the spinning rod and placed it next to the tent he was going to put up and hadn't built yet. The idea of gathering some herbs in the nearby forest came to him immediately.

      He didn't take anything with him, because he was going to walk two hundred meters in one direction and back. The edge of the forest was just visible. But after a while, Ruslan felt tired, although it was already close to the forest, but he did not reach it in any way. There was nothing to do, or rather, there was something, and this is without variations.

      "Coffee, where did that jar go?" Maybe the taxi driver stole it while I was sleeping. Come on, would he bother with this jar if one trip in one direction cost me a salary for three days, – everything was spinning in Ruslan's head, and there was no answer.

      Les began with a thicket that consisted of shrubs and grass as tall as an adult. Actions that Ruslan did not plan initially, completely took him out of rhythm and balance. He wanted to get back quickly, eat his breakfast, and go to sleep in the tent.

      – Ruslan Viktorovich. At some point, the man who was barely walking through the forest stopped abruptly and even straightened up and stopped moving.

      "Who's there?"

      – Ruslan Viktorovich, you, of course, just now thought that you have a fever or you ate some berries in the forest. That's not so. You have an excellent state of the body, you can walk on your feet, you can breathe.

      – What's going on?"

      "Nothing happens until nothing happens," they answered, but Ruslan looked around and saw no one.

      – I need to sit down, I'm sure I have a fever or something, I don't know, I don't know anything, I don't understand, I don't know…"

      Ruslan felt a surge of strength at some point and quickly got up.

      – Why did you come here?" – What is it? " the voice asked in a very low monotone.

      "Well, that… Go fishing… Rest… From everyone… After making long pauses after each word, Ruslan uttered it as if during an interrogation, and fell silent, waiting for the answer from the voice.

      "We've been waiting a long time, we've been informed," the voice said, and went on.

      – You, Ruslan Viktorovich, of course, are puzzled about who I am and what is happening, you are tormented by doubts about the reality of what is happening. And what is reality? Do you know that?" Ruslan was silent.

      – How do you distinguish your life from a dream?

      –Mmm-yyy – aah, – Ruslan mumbled, trying to formulate something clever, starting to realize that he was facing some kind of superintelligence.

      – Yes, you are in no hurry, Ruslan. I'm not superintelligent yet, and we're just going to see him, or rather, my confessor. You won't see me in the optical range of the human eye, I'm transparent as glass.

      "I see…

      – That's what you think. Here we are, and you'll be there, though you might change your mind and go back to the riverbank, a can of coffee in your backpack pocket.

      – what? Ruslan said and froze.

      Strange thoughts were passing through his head, memories were confused, but his consciousness was becoming clearer, and the desire to find out the secret exceeded caution. As he walked forward, no one answered any of his questions. The voice stopped.

      Ruslan walked forward, looking around, but didn't see anyone. He began to remember his life, and his whole life seemed to him like a silent movie, where the director put red pen marks by hand in the script.

      He clearly realized that he was very interested in science, as one of the teachers suggested to them to create their own scientific production for obtaining autonomous energy. But Ruslana at this time was more interested in training, he studied at the university half-heartedly and, despite this, he did not have C's in his diploma. Getting a degree without a C in its Department of NuclearPhysics was comparable to getting a red diploma in an ordinary commercial institute. Only five students have received a red diploma during the entire existence of the institute, and this is more than in the 80 years of the university's history, which, however, began as a technical school, but it doesn't matter now.

      After walking for some unknown distance, Ruslan saw a hunting lodge, which had a very dilapidated roof, if not to say, the roof was torn off. Next to the cabin, there were a small number of logs that had been cut down and laid out in a row.

      The door was opened a little, and when approaching Ruslan, a bunch of midges flew out in his face. After waiting for a while, he decided to go inside. The couch, despite the chaos and cobwebs around, was relatively in order, most importantly, there was no dust or debris.

      I sat down on the edgeof the cot, looked at my watch, lay down, and immediately fell asleep. Ruslan always had his watch with him, always. As soon as I entered the Faculty of Nuclear Physics. I woke up to some noise that permeated the forest. They showed that he had been asleep for about five minutes.

      When I woke up, I decided to go back to the riverbank, remembering why he had come to the forest in the first place, for threeshoddy salaries for a taxi. Ruslan was good at counting money, for which his friends often called him a miser, but he just counted them, although he could spend a decent amount on the same friends in a cafe for the evening. But no one remembered such moments and such treats from him.

      He came out of the cabin and saw a lot of other cabins around the cabin. On closer inspection, one could see that they were the same, or rather, not to notice the difference. Even the piles of logs were the same everywhere.

      Ruslan gradually turned off his rationality of thinking, even when he met, or rather heard, the voice. But even this did not help him calm down from the excitement, he was afraid, but there was no one to say or share it, so he stopped worrying. No one here will feel sorry for him. Pity and fear lose their meaning in the absence of witnesses.

      Timidly, he began to approach the first house that wascloser. Swaying a little in doubt, he went into the cabin and saw a man who was sleeping. At some point, he realized that he was wearing a jacket like his own. As he approached, he saw a man who looked remarkably like him, or rather, it was him.

      Quickly bouncing back from the realization of what was happening, he very quickly ran to another cabin, it was the same, or rather, there was a man who looked like him sleeping there.

      He was standing at the edge of a forest where there were many equally built and