Galinasky
Path book 1-7 Igor

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  • Аннотация:

    The Messiah with a broken memory is reborn in the world of Mass Effect in the body of Brother John Shepard. Now it's up to him to decide what the future of this world will be like when the harvest begins.

    Иллюстрации на яндекс диске: https://disk.yandex.ru/d/cJ6EbqhKlsQpjw

  Path 1
  Prolog.
  The day is long over, and the stars are about to light up in the sky. It's time for my next shift at a part-time job in a taxi. I take the order from the dispatcher and pick up the client - an attractive girl wants to spend time at the club. The road, rarely crossed by the junctions of overpasses, glistening with puddles in the sinkholes on the asphalt, is moderately broken, but still allows you to drive at a decent speed. From behind, the heart-rending howl of engines running at top speed is approaching. Driving at ninety, I am bypassed by two "chepyrki" (VAZ 2114) standing up - painted, tinted in trash, with loud rhythmic music bursting out of the windows. They rush past and disappear ahead of us behind a smooth turn of the city chord. There's an interchange four kilometers away, so I'll have time to admire the jerks in the oncoming lane. I'm slowing down automatically, ahead of the speedcams on the trellis farm thrown over the road. I'm always surprised when these assholes don't get caught. The descent is smooth, and a couple can be seen flying out from around the bend on the oncoming lane. One of the "dummies" flies into a puddle and catches an aquaplane at a speed of 180 km/h.
  Time has almost stopped, and I'm watching what's happening in slow motion. The idiot skids, throws it under the second one, and now two idiots are spinning loops in the oncoming lane. One hits the metal bump on the right side with a swing, pieces of bumper fly in all directions, sparks, the car crumples into a shapeless lump of metal and plastic. Consciousness notes all this as if automatically. The second one hits the side of the high curb of the dividing strip, the car bounces, it flies sideways onto the divider and hits the metal fence post with all its might. Glass splashes, the rear bumper, torn off by inertia, slowly takes off, and the car begins to tear in half. I see a long metal pin fly out from under the bottom and fly towards me in a smooth parabola, rotating. "Scribe!" he thinks, and the piece of metal hits the windshield with a pop like a gunshot. A blow to the chest, the pain flared up and died out. I slam on the brake, the car stops abruptly, I feel the jolts of my ABS in the pedal, the passenger squeals across the front seat, burying her face in the headrest. My swallow got up, the engine stopped, the locks clicked, automatically unlocking the doors.
  "What are you doing!" It's coming from the back seat. "Don't you know how to drive at all? I'll report to the dispatcher! They'll recruit anyone with purchased rights!"
  "You need to buckle up, you fool!" floats listlessly in my thoughts. I look at the ragged hole in the windshield with cracks radiating in all directions. I look down, and there's a pin sticking out of my chest with a cut-off bolt at the end. Why doesn't it hurt? My consciousness begins to swim, and a hot feeling spreads in my chest. There's something sticking out of your seat, I've hurt myself! What's it? Something sticky! the ceiling switch clicks, flooding the interior with white LED light. Ah-ah-ah! It comes from the back seat.
  What are you screaming about? My ears are already ringing. Or is it just my imagination? The ringing in my ears is getting louder, black flies are in front of my eyes... why is there no pain? Darkness and silence, there are no sounds, no movement, no sensations. Only on the verge of perception is a feeling-a whisper-a thought:
  "Forget everything, accept peace and oblivion, forget pain and fear, memories bring pain, why do you need them? Forget it, forget it, forget it..."
  In front of me, a figure with black wings forms out of the darkness.
  "Who am I! Answer me!" a thought flashes by. "I don't want oblivion! I want to remember!"
  "Are you sure you want to remember?" A winged figure with a scythe in his hands said. "Are you sure that's what you want?"
  "Yes! Yes, I do! Give me back to you. You are welcome."
  "As you wish."
  And I remembered everything. All my life: kindergarten, school, college, army! I remembered my wife, my children, and my job at the factory. I remembered everything: every day, and most importantly, I remembered my death.
  I felt wings forming from behind. Dumn, I turned around. Well, that's what I thought. The color is scarlet. Again. I always have this feeling after a violent death.
  "Dumn, did I die? Yes?"
  "The biological shell has stopped functioning. However, death is quite controversial. Don't you think?"
  "I'm a dead Reaper. What do you want?"
  "Cleanse the world for us as the messiah."
  Yes, your mother.
  "What kind of world? I don't remember anything else. You described him in your fiction. Across the Mass effect universe."
  Yes, yours.
  "I'll be a Shepard like that."
  "Okay, but keep in mind that the time in that cycle is not going the way it is in the game, and a lot will differ for better or worse. Messiahs have already been sent there before you, but they failed."
  "Will my mental abilities recover?"
  "Yes, there are many mentalists and empaths in that world."
  "Well, I agree. I'll be alone there or paired with someone."
  "You will have a younger brother, the local messiah John Shepard, but judging by our visions of the future, he will not be able to cope."
  It feels like I'm falling, and the fall is getting faster and faster. A dazzling white dot appeared ahead and began to grow rapidly. The dot turns into a cloud of light, the feeling of the body comes, it is compressed, as in a vice, there is a soft elastic tightness and darkness around, I am not breathing. What's happening? The darkness pulsates, strange sounds are heard, as if someone is moaning. The body is squeezed to severe pain and pushed forward by the head. Suddenly, I feel freedom and a bright light. Everything is cloudy, there are some colored spots and voices. I feel a blow on my ass, it hurts so much that I want to scream. I take a breath, my chest explodes with wild pain, I scream and pass out under my own scream.
  Part 1. Chapter 1. Hello, am I your Igor?!..
  Igor (Mendoir, March-April 2355)
  March 11, 2355
  The realization came somehow suddenly. I saw a giant bending over me, who smiled at me and said:
  "Who is it that I have here, so small, and already awake?" Damn, is he talking about me? And why is it "small"?! I've always been a mess in my adult body. I tried to feel myself with my hands... and I broke off like that. Hands! My fucking hands! THEY DIDN'T LISTEN TO ME! He tried to touch his face and stuck his finger in his own eye.
  "Whoo, your mother!", I tried to swear, but instead something like came out of me: "Augo mugo ao!". Ooooh, I can't even talk properly! A complete polar fox! Have arrived...
  The man picks me up, and I feel like my head is being pulled back so badly.
  With a noticeable effort, I straighten my head and slowly look around. The decor is nothing like that: laconic, futuristic, all sorts of screens, a half-wall window, bent furniture made of polished metal. A tablet made of transparent glass with glowing orange symbols is lying on the table. Am I the one who got into the future? And that's bread! The Reaper would have sent me back to the Middle Ages, which was really tough back then. No sorters, no medicine, you'll shudder when you think about dental treatment, the church is militant with all sorts of inquisitions! Well, if not a magically advanced world. There's a better atmosphere there.
  "So, I'll try to look at the hand anyway." If you bring it up to your face quietly, deliberately... that's it, your hand obeyed! No, adults don't have such hands, the fingers are plump, the nails are pink. So I'm a child, not "Gulliver in the land of giants"! Damn, I need to go to the bathroom. I start kicking my legs and groaning. There is a contact! The man bends down and takes out a metal pot from under the sofa - well, the most ordinary kind, my boys had the same in a previous life, only plastic, not stainless steel. So, pants off, they put me in front of an iron friend.
  Okay, it's done, they're probably carrying me to the bathroom. Exactly! Oh, the mirror! So, so, we look at ourselves... A little kid, he looks about a year old, I'm trying to smile, oh, dimples have formed on my cheeks!
  There are about eight teeth in his mouth. There's not enough hair yet, and the color is so strange, reddish like. The eyes are green, no, GREEN, like malachite! So they washed me, put my pants back on, and carried me back. We look around, it's spacious, there are a lot of windows, all kinds of equipment, and this is probably a TV! Shit, it looks like two meters diagonally! There are columns of one and a half meters on the sides with grids on the outside, columns, probably. Everything is turned off, the red indicators are winking. We returned to the same place where we came from, the man sat me on the sofa, propped me up with pillows on both sides, put some crap with a pen in his hand, I shook it, and it started to squeak, lights inside. Bah, it's a rattle! Well, let's take a closer look at it. I've always been reborn in magical worlds, and I'm very interested in everything in such a developed world.
  Well, what can I say, nothing special: made of transparent plastic, a ball with another ball inside, the second one with built-in LEDs, the handle is also made of plastic, only soft to the touch. Well, that's it. There was a "pssssssss" sound from the right. I look, and there's a piece of wall moving so slowly, and the opening we entered is closing... closed. And on the wall to the right, a green circle about ten centimeters in diameter lit up, and the circle itself seemed to be hanging in the air without touching the wall. Wow, it looks like a hologram!
  Then I felt that someone was looking at me. So, turn your head slowly to the left. Wow, what a cat! The head is bigger than mine, hefty, sixty centimeters at the withers! Thick long paws, a meter-long tail like a tube, and only the tip bends back and forth. He stands on the couch next to me and looks at me with his green eyes, paying attention. I pulled the handles to the cat and clenched my fists. He unclenched it. The cat reached out to me.
  The man sat down at the table, and says:
  "What, Barsik, Igor woke up, and you're right here, on guard duty?" The cat looked at the man, stood on the pillow with its front paws and folded itself into a ball so that its head was right under my hand. I reached out and ran my fingers through the wool.... and the fur is soft, I scratched him behind the ear with my little fingers, went down on his cheek, the cat threw his head back, purred like an engine. I was looking at the man, and he turned sideways to the table, pressed something with his hand under the table, and in front of him a hefty hologram lit up for about a meter and a half. He put gloves on his hands with metal claws on the tips of his fingers and began to think in the hologram: he pokes somewhere on the left, then moves back and forth with both hands at once, then launches his hands into the hologram itself with fingers spread out, as if holding something, and twists his palms, as if turning. Bah, it's a big deal, I guess! I wish I'd been like this in a previous life!
  The man appears to be in his thirties, has blond hair, blue eyes, and is wearing what looks like a pair of light-colored overalls with hip pockets and a white T-shirt with a large blue inscription "LC" LOKI EI-14 "TAS NAVY" on the left side. She wears soft-looking, short moccasins made of white material. I stared at him like that for twenty minutes. In the end, he couldn't stand it, got out from behind the table, walked through the hologram, came up to me and said:
  "Why are you looking at the folder, my daughter, as if you've seen it for the first time!" And he's smiling. I return his smile, he bends closer to me... and I am covered with love, tenderness and some kind of joy mixed with delight! And now my abilities have awakened. I've always been an empath with mentalist skills. I need to put up a shield, otherwise I'll swim right now. Damn, it doesn't work. Strange. The range of abilities is very small. Although when I was reborn into a child's body, then?
  "Should I turn on cartoons?" He says "Dad" and clicks something on the table. There was a buzzing and clicking sound above my head, and right in front of me, about two meters away, a three-dimensional picture appeared in the air, with some icons scattered in groups on a blue background, and numbers in the corner. "11:03:2355 10:22". Wow, we've decided on the date... it's the 24th century! The icons are signed with different abbreviations such as " СПиКРК по 1УО ", try it, understand. Here the cursor appeared, it hovered over the icon with the image of a paper daddy, signed as "miscellaneous", several windows flashed in a row ... and voila, a picture with a roaring lion appeared! She went all over the "screen", and... no, well, it can't be! "Tom and Jerry"! Hold me seven! It was worth dying to watch these cartoons again in a new life! Oh, ha ha ha, I can't, I can't! Well, let's see!
  Two hours have passed
  Something is bothering me, some kind of discomfort. Damn, I'm hungry! And this "daddy" is stuck in his punch line, and it's like I'm not there! So, we need to get his attention somehow, maybe yell? Okay, I'll try:
  "Aaaaaaaaoooooooo! Ohhhhh! Waaaaa!"
  I see there is an effect, he turns and looks at me:
  "What are you doing, son?"
  I stare back intently and, looking into his eyes, make a sound:
  "Ooooooo."
  "Dad" slaps his forehead with his palm and exclaims:
  "You're probably hungry at my place! I'm a fool! I forgot about you with my job!" he jumps up from his chair, quickly goes to the doorway, slaps the green mug with his palm, the door opens with a hiss, and he disappears somewhere in the house.
  Another hiss is heard, then something clinks, clinks, hums... everything is quiet. Footsteps were heard approaching, and he returned. He's holding a glass plate with something mushy inside. He takes a chair, sits down in front of me and starts the process of feeding me. Hmm, this "porridge" is a delicious thing, vegetable puree with meat paste. I turn over both cheeks, admiring my father's face. Like any loving parent, he accompanies every spoonful by opening and closing his own mouth, and it's getting harder and harder for me to watch. Oh, I can't take it anymore, I'm going to neigh like a horse! As a result, I choked and, mixing coughing and laughing, I burst into tears, which brought my father to a real panic attack. But everything passes, and this has passed. The folder ran off to the kitchen (well, where else did he get it all?) and he brought me a drinking bowl with an incredibly delicious compote. After drinking a compote, we continued our business: I watched cartoons, and the folder was working on a kool-aid.
  An hour later
  I heard a noise from behind the door, something rattled, the door slid open, and a beautiful woman of my father's age appeared in front of me, with dark brown hair, broken dark eyebrows above wide-set large gRatnate eyes, with fluffy long eyelashes on a regular, Scandinavian-type face, but with soft lips. She was wearing a long fur coat made of thick, shiny black fur. Black pointed-toed boots with low heels were visible from under the fur coat. How are you doing here? She asked, and then noticed a hologram with cartoons. So! What is this? She asked, looking at her father. Michael Shepard, I'm asking you! What is it? She pointed at the hologram.
  Damn, he really is the messiah. I wonder what my name is. Although Igor seemed to say "father".
  March 25, 2355
  So, one step, one more step, take your time Igor, take your time, hold your head, hold it, I say! Here is the corner of the crib, we intercept with our hands, and then a step, another step. I'm learning to walk! My legs are still weak, but my hands are already much better. It's early in the morning, it's just getting light, and my parents are sleeping on the couch with their arms around each other. A Barsik is lying at their feet and follows my steps around the crib with an attentive look. So, keep the balance, oops, the head is outweighed, eee! I manage to fold in half and land on the fifth point! Uhh! It took my breath away!
  Are you awake, my little one? I hear my mother's voice, she looks at me with a smile, I smile back, grab the bars, pull myself up and stand up. My head is higher than the bars, and I, sincerely crushing my forehead, stretch out my arms to my mother. Yes! Now they are really parents to me. There is not only a bright side to empathy, but also a "dark" side. It is impossible to remain indifferent under the pressure of parental feelings. Mom gets up, picks me up from the crib, and I'm just basking in a wave of maternal love. They put me on the potty while I do my chores, mom puts on a robe, and we hold hands and quietly stomp into the kitchen. There's a mega-device called a chairstool. It's a tall chair with a sliding table attached in the front. Mom puts me in it, pulls up a table. I look out the window, and there are leaves blooming on a large, sprawling tree in the courtyard. The tree is strange: the bark peels off it, falls off in layers, and the leaves come out in a strange silvery-green color. I've only seen such trees in the elven forest before.
  A hefty brown dog walks thoughtfully around the yard, he is so big that he looks like a bear. And when this beast yawns, it seems like my whole head can enter its mouth!
  Come on, eat," mom says and puts a plate in front of me, in it semolina porridge with pieces of fruit and some berries. I take a spoon in my right hand and start eating slowly. It's not working fast yet! There's a good chance you can get a spoon past your mouth. Meanwhile, Mom takes out a soft plastic container with a volume of one and a half liters of porridge and meat from the pantry and goes out into the yard with it. The dog rushes to her with an expression of such intense joy that it seems as if his tail is about to fall off and, spinning like a boomerang, fly off into the far distance!
  "Quiet, Polkasha!" Mom exclaims at the dog spinning around. If you stay hungry, I'll dump all your breakfast past the bowl, and you'll eat from the ground again! But the dog doesn't seem to be intimidated by this prospect at all! Footsteps are heard from behind, someone entered the kitchen, quietly came up to me and kissed me on the back of the head, showering me with adoration! Daddy woke up, he's a weak empath himself! Mom came back from the yard, and I can hear her saying:
  "Misha, how many times have I told you, don't walk around the house in your underwear! Well, you have a bathrobe!"
  "Come on, Diane. I'm only here in the morning, and anyway, I'm at home, and that's what I want to wear!"
  "Oh so! Look at the example you're setting for our boys! Just imagine if I start walking around the house in my panties!"
  "Oh! It will be a magnificent sight! You have nothing to hide and something to be proud of!"
  "Double flattery! And anyway, in case you haven't forgotten, I'm seven months pregnant!"
  "Oh-oh-oh! Ha ha! It's hard to forget and even harder not to notice! And anyway, come here, retired Major of the medical service! I will explain to you all the subtleties of communication with a senior officer! Hehe!"
  "Take your hands off me, Mr. Captain of the first rank, retired, what are you doing?" There is scuffling and kissing sounds behind my back. "Oh-oh! Michael Shepard, I love you, my husband! But now you go, put on a bathrobe, go up to the second floor and wake up our sons, and don't you dare contradict me! Is everything clear to you?!"
  "Aw, Aw, ma'am! The order is clear! Allow me to perform!"
  "Do it!"
  And the father, humming some cheerful tune, leaves the kitchen.
  Ten minutes later
  "A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a! I'm the first one down!"
  "No, I am, I am the first!"
  "Nifiga, ha-ha-ha!"
  It came from the stairs to the second floor. My two older brothers flew down it with a bang! This is the weather of Deniska and Leshka! Elbowing and puffing, they stumble into the kitchen.
  "Hello, Ma!" says Deniska.
  "Hey, Mom!" Leshka echoes him.
  "So, young people, how should well-mannered chevaliers behave at breakfast? Come on, come out of the kitchen, and come in properly!"
  The brothers went out the door, caught their breath, and sedately went back in.
  "Hello, Mother," Denis said, bowing slightly.
  "Good morning, Mom." Leshka said, repeating his brother's movement.
  "Hello children, have a seat at the table." Mom replied, bowing her head. The guys went around the table, "accidentally" passing by my chair, and hugged me from both sides.
  "Hello, little one!" Deniska whispered and kissed me on the cheek.
  "Hello, Little snake!" kissing the other one, Leshka whispered.
  After that, they both sat down at the table.
  
  Three hours after
  I'm sitting alone in the middle of the carpet in the children's room on the second floor of our house, talking softly to the cat. Slowly and gradually, my tongue begins to obey me. Hey, Basik, I'm sorry, I'm so stupid.
  "Уот т"енеуюсь-т"енеуюсь, азгоаиаю с тобой! А тоуку?" (I'm practicing, practicing, talking to you, but what's the use?).
  The cat is silent, quietly purring, lying down on the carpet next to it, stretched out to its full length and rolling a wheel from some kind of machine with its front paws. The brothers have a whole box of this "scrap metal". Ehhh! I'm itching to make something out of it, but they only give me rattles and model airplanes. Hopefully, the torment won't last too long. "Так веть, кот? Я усему наущусь! (That's a cat. I'll learn everything.)" The Barsik purrs, squinting affectionately.
  By the way, I managed to find out my location. An hour ago, Mom, holding me in her arms, turned on the huge TV. Uh-huh-huh! What a thing it is! A natural window into another world! So, there was news, and a pretty presenter, in quite decent English, broadcast that the current state of affairs in the colony of Mendoir is just fine, all mining and processing complexes are operating at full capacity, which will allow this year to increase the shipment of concentrate, increase the number of colonists and the income of existing ones. Then there was a block of interplanetary news about the new initiatives of the Citadel Council, about the work of the ambassador of the Alliance of Systems... hmm!
  It seems that in the canon, people should be on the council, but here is an ambassador, not an adviser... Then there was the sports news block, and it all ended with the weather block. Everything is the same as always: the surroundings change, but the essence remains the same.
  April 11, 2355
  As usual, I was sitting at my chair by the kitchen window and looking out at how our cat and our doggie were playing with some kind of crap that looked more like scraps of a stuffed toy.
  "You've turned one year old, Igor!"
  Suddenly, with a loud hum, a red and green bike flew into the yard. It's really a bike like the Japanese had, with only two seats with a raised backrest. And with a mass effect generator under the body. Both of my brothers sat on it in tandem, with Denis's face looking worried and guilty, and Leshka, who was sitting behind, looking tearful and scratched, while he strangely held his left hand. I made a sound:
  "Uh-uh-uh!" She pointed out the window. The folder went to the window, looked, his face took on a worried expression, anxiety was clearly playing in his emotions.
  "Dayan," he said, "the guys are in trouble!"
  "What's wrong, Mish?"
  "Call an ambulance, Dayana."
  Mom went into the living room and chirped at the terminal, and after a short chirping, a clear female voice came from there:
  "Dayan, my dear! Is that you, what happened?"
  "Ratnate, I'm really glad to see you too, but I need you! Рэй, я тоже очень рад тебя видеть, но ты мне нужен!"
  "I'm on my way, honey, just don't worry, it's not good for you! and slowly fading away. Duck, Du-uck! Get ready soon, let's fly to the Shepards...."
  It is not known what the mysterious Duck replied, the connection was disconnected. The front door buzzed, and my brothers appeared for all to see.
  "Well and?" My father asked.
  "Da-ad. We rode a bike here...." Denis looked at the floor and said, "Well, anyway, Leshka flew off and, it seems, broke his arm." At that time, Leshka was hesitating next to him with trembling lips and eyes full of tears.
  "So..." said the father. "And how could this happen, driving without a limiter again?"
  "Well, Da-ad!" Both of them howled. "Only small ones ride with a limiter."
  "Yeah, so you're big?" Mom exclaimed.
  "Well, mo-om!" They both howled again. At the same time, the brothers looked the most dejected, and their emotions showed pity for each other and, for some reason, fear.
  "Well, Aunt Ratnate is about to arrive, and it will become completely clear what to do with you." said the father. The brothers hunched their heads and looked at their mother with a strange hope. What are you watching?
  "Hoping to get off easy?" The brothers shuddered and looked at their father expectantly.
  "What did I tell you?" The father asked.
  "That we should be careful," Denis spoke up.
  "That you should drive without a limiter carefully" Leshka whimpered.
  "And what about you?" The brothers began to sob, both of them.
  "Well Daddy... We didn't do it on purpose.... It's kind of like that! We didn't run into Ham on purpose!" Don't take the bike away from us.
  The sobs turned into tears.
  "So you also ran into Azat? And how is he doing? Where is he, by the way?"
  "Dad, Azat flew home, Fawzan took him away!" Deniska spoke through tears.
  "So he also got beaten up! Well, Dahe he'll give him nuts! It's science for you, to drive like crazy," Mom said, putting her hands on her hips.
  There was a squeak from the informant at the door. I completely missed how the doctors arrived. There was some kind of long-shaped futuristic-looking thing behind the fence, but with the familiar outlines of a blue chandelier that twinkled fervently. Mom waddled over to the door and pressed the flickering green hologram on the right jamb. The door opened and I walked into the room... my mouth dropped open! All so slender in a fitted snow-white suit with a bright red cross on her left forearm... a blue-skinned SUCCUBUS without wings and showing off! She's just like Azari in the "Mass Effect": tentacles on her head, and pigmented spots on her face - and she's so beautiful! And most importantly, there is almost no smell of pheromones.
  "Michael!" she exclaimed. "Where are they?"
  "Admire it!" My father replied. "There's Leshka, he ejected from the bike!"
  "Come here, Alexey, let's see what's wrong with you."
  I feel a flash of concern from Doc.
  Leshka came up to her and held out his shaking left hand. An orange hologram flashed around the Asari's left wrist. This is the first time I've seen a succubus in a high-tech medical kit. She ran it along Leshka's arm, looked at the hologram, pressed her finger on the strange round pimple on the right side of her head and said:
  "Duck! Bring a small treatment table and a suitcase with clips!"
  I turned to the window and saw a towering upper DEMON sidling through the gate! Although I remember my impressions of the second part of the mass effect game. If I saw Garrus in the dark and without armor with a visor, I would shoot this demon. He was wearing a snow-white suit like the doctor's, with a briefcase in his right hand and a long trunk placed vertically in his left. Moreover, our dog, twirling his tail like a fan, gets in the way under his feet, showing no signs of aggression, rather a stormy joy, as from meeting a good friend. That's right!
  What about the human colony?! Where the Turian and the Asari serve in the ambulance... nothing is clear.
  Well, okay, we'll watch... The Turian entered the house, went to the middle of the living room, put a suitcase on the floor, took hold of the trunk with both hands, and I still didn't understand how, but this trunk suddenly turned into a long table, immediately put on the floor.
  "Bring three chairs, Mish." Dr. Ratnate said. Folder, under Doc's guidance, quickly arranged chairs around this table, and Leshka was seated on one chair. The succubus cast an anesthetic spell and began to set the bone with Dahi. Then she glowed with blue light and cast a regeneration spell on Leshka's arm.
  "By the way, Dahe!" said the father. "Your eldest is hurt too, he's sitting at home!"
  When it was over, Leshka's hand was wrapped in a cool white scarf.
  "Okay, Michael," the doctor said, "You'll arrive at the hospital in two days, we'll remove the retainers there, and it's better not to strain your arm for a week."
  "Do you understand everything, young man?" She turned to Leshka.
  "Got it," my brother squeaked.
  "And no bike racing! I'll rip off my pistol and put it in today, too." Dr. Dahe said.
  "Mish, sit down, we'll arrange it, it's an accident anyway!" called Father azari.
  "Let's go," Doc said "The victim's name?"
  "Alexey Mikhailovich Shepard."
  "Age?"
  "7 years."
  "Date of birth?"
  "July 22, 2348."
  "Place of birth?"
  "Leonov City, Mendoir colony."
  "Parents, father?"
  "Mikhail Alexandrovich Shepard."
  "Age?"
  "65 years old."
  "The mother?"
  "Hannah Diana Shepard."
  "Age?"
  "63 years old."
  "Home address?"
  "Leonov City, Strawberry Street 2, Whisper Ranch."
  "Okay," the blue doctor said, "I'll fill out the rest myself."
  Then the Turian Dahe came up to me.
  I stared at him with undisguised curiosity, wide-eyed, and there was a lot to see. First of all, he looked like a game Turian and didn't look like one at the same time. The mandibles covered the cheeks, closer to the chin, with curved, pointed ends lower, under which fangs were hidden, looking down, two centimeters long. That's what I understand, teeth... The figure was dense, proportionally built, beautiful even to a human eye, and not that squalor - a product of Biovar designers. The hands are four-fingered. All the fingers on the hands ended in powerful, slightly curved claws. The Turian's skin was golden brown, his face had a colorful tattoo of white and blue lines woven into a complex pattern, his eyes were deep-set, with dark gRatnate whites and an incredible, simply glowing bright blue iris around a round pupil. Curiosity radiated from him like a wave. I stretched out my hands and clenched my fingers into fists several times.
  "That's right!" The father said with a smile. "Not a drop of fear, just begs to be picked up."
  "Yes, we can easily do that." Dahi replied. "Come here, little one." And he pulls me out of the chair. I didn't see anything repulsive up close, on the contrary. I ran my hand over the Turian's cheek: the skin was smooth, velvety to the touch and hot, about forty degrees, he already squeezed his eyes shut with pleasure and made a strange, purring sound, which was immediately picked up by our cat standing in the hallway.
  "Are you going to Aunt Ray's?" I heard it from the left. Turning, she met the gaze of the Asari. She was smiling, which made her face even more attractive. Although, somewhere else! I stretched out my arms to her and was immediately taken away from Dahya. The Turian laughed. "That's right, Ratnate, everyone sticks to you, even the kids!"
  "I looked at the Asari with interest." Blue skin, soft and silky to the touch, appendages that slightly bounced under the fingers, a pattern of pigment spots, in the form of a complex pattern, around the amazing color of lilac eyes. By the way, the Asari had eyelashes, although there were no other types of vegetation on the skin. Strange.
  "And what is your name, young sir?" Ratnate cooed.
  "Igor," I replied. Wow, it turned out to be clean to say! I see my father's joyfully surprised face, and my mother's already big eyes are wide open. Oh, to be naughty, so naughty! Poking my finger under Asari's chin, I said:
  "Ray."
  "Then Azari's eyes got big, like two animeshki with her mom."
  She turned to Duck and pointed at him:
  "Dahi."
  The Turian's jaw dropped, and I was overwhelmed by a wave of amazement.
  The adults were stunned into silence.
  "Well, what's my name?" The father came up and asked. I smiled at him with all my twelve teeth and said:
  "Misha's dad." Just look who's talking! My father said, laughing. "And now you two. Go without a bike for a couple of months."
  The boys groaned.
  "I'm going to my room!" Dr. Dahi hurried on. "I need to examine my senior. Ratnate, let's go."
  "Bye guys!" Azari said, and the medics gathered their things and left.
  Chapter 2. This world, is everything wrong here, or is it...?
  Igor (Mendoir, April - June 2358)
  April 11, 2358
  The slowly rising sun illuminated the peaks of the mountains in the east, they are clearly visible from the window of my room in clear weather. It's been four years since I've been in this world, the world of a computer game that has come to life, so similar and at the same time completely different! It's been a year since I got my hands on a desktop terminal, and I've started a real brainstorming session.
  I managed to find answers to almost all my questions: They had never even heard of the Reapers here, there was a huge pile of contradictory information about the Protheans, and most importantly, everyone was absolutely sure that they had built both the Citadel and the repeaters. So, what? The canonical events did not happen! But the most important thing is that there is no certainty that I am connected with them. However, "John" Shepard, like "Ingvar" Shepard, exist in reality, and the most amazing thing is that they are members of the same family!
  Yes, on May 22, 2355, my younger brother was born, and my dad, according to the old Russian tradition, named his youngest son Ivan! He is very original! Mom, laughing, told him so. Well, my parents are retired military personnel: my dad is a captain of the first rank (or captain in the Anglo-American rank system), and my mom is a major in the Navy medical service.
  Plus, I'm a colonist from Mendoir, just like in the game, but in a crowd. And as far as I could remember, in the game, the colonist's entire family is killed, after which he (she) goes into the army. I'll get out of my skin, but I won't let them kill my family!
  After Vanka was born, they pushed taking care of me onto my older brothers and our wonderful cat! The brothers were not particularly pleased, but the redhead seemed to be just happy. The mustachioed babysitter followed me around the house, played, slept, and accompanied me on trips to the center of the town. And after the brothers were allowed to take me out with them, Barsik and I became as much a part of the children's company in our village as my brothers, their Turian friends, Azat and Fawzan, the sons of the same Dr. Dahi, their Azari girlfriends named Binna, the daughters of Dr. Ratnate, and a small a Turian, my age, Nasar, the younger brother of Azat and Fawzan. Last September, I went to the local kindergarten equivalent, where a lot of amazing discoveries awaited me.
  The clock on my desk read 6:30 a.m. Although a day on Mendoir is longer than a day on Earth by as much as 9 minutes, a year is shorter by 7 days. So we live by the time of the Alliance of Systems, that is, Greenwich Mean Time on Earth, plus a sunset-sunrise correction. The clock is periodically adjusted according to the signal of the planetary control virtin. The whole family is still asleep, but I get up earlier than everyone else and do exercises. A few classical exercises with weights on my arms and legs over two years of training have made me very strong for my age, improved flexibility, coordination of movements and motor skills. I also started working with a pole. I remember well the weakness of the first year of my life and I want to be strong. Thank the extranet for the huge number of all kinds of video tutorials on physical education! The main language of the colony was Russian, although English was spoken by everyone, of course, the main language of the Alliance. Plus, they spoke in "basic" or basic galactic, aka "galact". It was developed by the Salarians, together with the Asari, as much as two and a half thousand years ago. Well, all the "strangers" spoke their native languages perfectly, a natural Babylon 5, not Mendoir!
  Right now, I'm pretty well developed for a human boy my age. The body is strong and flexible enough to be able to enter the youth corps of the Navy for officer training.
  I heard noises on the ground floor, probably mom got up and went to cook breakfast, and it's time for me to take a shower, brush my teeth and generally get ready. My brothers will take me to the garden soon.
  Five hours later
  There are also a whole bunch of youngsters from almost all races of the Citadel Space who go to my garden. And who is not in our, still junior, group: ten people of all colors and races, three Asari, three Turians (two boys and a girl), two Batarian girls! And, like the icing on the cake... the drell guy! That's such a gang of nineteen bullies! Our group has two Azari teachers, both purple. The head of the group, Rien Vais, and her assistant, Taya T'dari. Since I'm considered a kind of child prodigy here, I've already kind of "learned" how to read. Looking at me, my whole group learned to read, after all, children of any kind have a very developed imitative instinct. They still read poorly, but that's not even four years old. As far as I've found out, almost all children develop about the same way, even Azari.
  To my wide-eyed question, our parents: "Why is this, because Azari live for a very long time and are considered adults from the age of one hundred?" she received a very detailed answer. The Asari's maturation has three stages. The first stage, from birth to about fifteen years of age, is due to rapid growth and development, and intellectual abilities develop during this period of life. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, physical development slows down sharply, but does not stop, and a young Azari, who looks like a human girl of 13-14 years old, begins to improve intellectually. They study a lot, train, harden their mind and body, and this stage lasts up to about 45-55 years. Then the third stage of growing up begins: the young Azari begins hormonal restructuring, she grows up a little more, gets rounded in all the right places, and her mental abilities begin to develop. It is at this time that Asari are taught to work with biotics and merge their consciousnesses in the so-called "embrace of eternity". Of course, the speed of development is very dependent on individual characteristics. Well, just like people. The racial composition of the Mendoir colony is actually more extensive, but since Salarians or Vorks develop much faster than others, it was considered unnecessary to include their children in general groups. You're probably asking, where does Vorka come from? As the local online encyclopedia suggested to me, the vork is actually a fairly advanced species, maybe inferior to humans and Turians in intelligence, but with a huge adaptation resource! In the Vorka Citadel Space, they are mostly employed in the mining industry, and as it turns out, they are excellent miners who are able to work in conditions where most members of other races simply die. That's why they work in the mines on Mendoir and live in large clans in mining villages. They rarely leave the villages themselves, and almost no one is allowed in, in general, they are recluses. And those thieves who hang out in all kinds of gangs are exiles from clans, complete outcasts and lumpens. For a Vorka, with their lifespan of thirty standard years, exile from the clan is the most terrible punishment. Because women are never expelled. Our planet Mendoir actually belongs to the Asari Republic, and it is considered a human colony because the Rosenkov Materials Corporation has concluded a concession agreement with the Council of matriarchs for 20% of the total share of resource extraction. Since the corporation has little interest in the troubles of the Alliance of Systems Council, it hired staff for colonization, not really looking at race, but more at the professional qualities of the employees. Wow, I've been thinking about something on the tree... And they're going to congratulate me! So they built a round dance, put me in the center and, to the general screeching and squeaking, they began to sing: "How did we bake a loaf on Igor's name day..." Of course, I'm making a happy appearance, but I want to laugh, I won't save you! Oh well, I'll get over it. Even on the first day in kindergarten, two small Turian ringleaders tried to build the whole group. And they built it, but they broke off on me. Well, it's not a small thing to compete with an adult in psychological pressure, even in a child's body. But I can also fight in sparring. They got a lot of abrasions and bruises and calmed down, and now with all their problems, the little ones go to them first, and then, if their solution does not suit the little ones, to me. To be honest, it bothers me beyond words...
  By the way! I have a girlfriend and a boyfriend here. One is a Turian kid named Nasar, the son of the same Dr. Dahi. A great friend of Daddy's, a partner in the preference game. Actually, they've been friends since the Navy days, when my dad served as captain of the light cruiser Loki, and Dahi Tanir was the chief physician on the Turian dreadnought Smasher, and they, as it turned out, jointly chased Batarian pirates in the Skillian Reach. And they were catching up to the point that dad thundered to Dahi in the infirmary, because the infirmary on Loki was blown apart by a direct missile hit. The second friend is Avanti Natol Batarian, and I met her at our ranch. Her dad is my assistant, and mine is my deputy. chief engineer of the enrichment complex of the corporation. And the chief engineer of the complex is a Quarian named Aegih'RIGAR, and the corporation values him so much that they ordered him a special house, no less than ours, by the way, completely sealed, with filtration and disinfection systems, and a huge glass bay window. It stands in our village on the second street called Strawberry, and Uncle Aegikh, having taken off his suit and put on a bathrobe, likes to sit in the bay window, admiring the life of the village.
  The most amazing thing is that he differs from a human only by a slightly different ear structure, there were four fingers. And his face looks more like an elf from fairy tales, with light lilac glowing eyes and pointed tips of ears. It's idiotic to make aliens three-fingered! Try to hold the rifle with three fingers and shoot at the same time. Igrodels suck! And his fingers, just like a pianist's, are long and flexible. And there are steel claws on the gloves of the skaf. At first I didn't understand why, I thought it was a weapon, until I saw how it worked on the toolbox. There are two times fewer buttons there than my father's, and twice as many buttons themselves. I once asked my dad how cool Uncle Aegikha's toolbox was, and he just rolled his eyes.
  They sang a round dance and pulled me to the table, there is a cake. I saw through the window how his mother brought him and put him on the veranda of the group. A hefty cake, by the way, though, for twenty-one children's mouthfuls - in one bite. A hefty pot of compote was brought here from the dining room. And here, as it has already turned out, there is no trace of any poisonous food from dextroamacids. At least the Turians ate everything they could. But Azari and Salars are very picky about their food. The Kvarin preferred generally sterilized Turian food. Humans, like Krogan and Batarian humans, had some food preferences, but they could eat anything if they wanted to. Of course, all races have dietary restrictions. So my cake is universal, suitable for all races ... which, alas, does not add to its taste.
  That reminds me! One day Uncle Dahi came to visit us with his family: his wife and three children. His eldest sons are the same age as my older brothers, and since we are also neighbors, they are bosom friends, and all the mischief in the village is the work of my brothers and their Turian friends, plus Dr. Ratnait's daughters, as it turned out, are also our neighbors.
  Her name is Ratnait T'rann. Uncle Dahya's wife's name is Kasia, and she is a housewife. So, when they all came to us for the first time, my younger brother turned exactly one year old. We sat and chatted. Cassia told the legends about the history of the Turians and their spirits. Tael was sipping vodka through a straw, playing preference with Dad and Dahi. Well, we were playing monopoly in a tight group.
  We ate the cake and drank the compote. There's a really awesome pool here in the garden, and I love swimming. In general, the Azari love the pool the most, they feel like fish in it, you can't drive them out. Then there are people, it depends on individual preferences. Batarians are indifferent. Turians rather do not like, although they swim with pleasure on the shoals. But our Drell doesn't wear it. They built a dry room for him in the pantry, where the humidity is about five percent, and there are some salts in the air that are useful for drells. This is probably the prevention of Kapral's syndrome. And his name is Feron!
  Two months later. The Whisper Ranch
  It's time for the holidays, so I'm sitting on the porch of our house right now, with an album on my lap, and pretending to draw. In fact, I shamelessly warm my ears listening to the conversation between my father and his assistant, the Batarian Anker Natol, sitting on wicker chairs in the middle of the lawn. Avanti is sitting next to her, with a similar album on her lap, and, sticking out her tongue from diligence, she is drawing something with colored pencils. Actually, she has a real gift for drawing. What I do with effort and effort, she does somehow by herself. After introducing her to the album and showing her the basics, I was just amazed at how fast she was progressing. She should be an artist! Even now, when I looked at her album, I saw our cat lying on the grass with a lazy expression on his face, and all this in small strokes, and so accurately conveys the mood.... Alas, I can never do that.
  "Listen, Anker," my father says, "What's wrong with you, you haven't been yourself for the second week, what happened?"
  "I haven't heard from my brother for a long time. Neither from himself, nor from his family. Saer is worried!"
  "I thought you said his contract was ending. I got him engaged to us, agreed with the Agehik, he punched the management. Everyone agrees to accept him and his family."
  "That seems to be the problem. Someone must have betrayed my brother for lathering up to us, and in the border systems of the Hegemony they look askance at this."
  "This way, normal conditions would be created for the reasonable, and they would not have to catch their own population trying to run away wherever they look, just to get away from their native state."
  "This is what you have here at RM, just like in the legends. At first, we all couldn't believe that this was happening. I kept waiting for a trick, when they would start to squeeze. It was only a year later that I believed that everything that was written in the contract was being fulfilled."
  "The main resource of any state or corporation, even a family, is people. These are not factories, steamships, ships and junk. These are the ones who create, produce, mine, build, transport, and raise the next generation. Invest in the sensible ones, and you'll get a hundredfold return. RM has been pursuing such a policy for two hundred years, so the corporation is in third place in the list of the strongest companies in the Alliance of Systems, and it is included in the hundred of Citadel Space. What about the Hegemony?"
  "I'm not arguing, Michael. I'm not arguing... I'm just worried about my brother."
  "Shall we have a drink? Would you like some cognac?"
  "What? The real one? Terran?"
  "Yeah! Moldovan! Maybe not the best, but still. A friend gave it to me, my friends on Earth bought it, and they sent the box to me. Ah... pour it. I'll try again.
  The father went into the house, and Anker stared at the sky with a kind of detached look. His emotions were filled with longing and fear, but there was a hint of hope somewhere. That's right, Uncle Anker is a normal man. Kind, hardworking, good-looking, straight arms. Dad is very pleased with him. And Hegemony is just such a dump with slavery from the lower castes, with bonded contracts... wolfish capitalism in all its glory. I once asked him, "Uncle Anker, why do your people put up with all this, and not take up arms and restore order in the country?" He replied that only overseers, police, army and family members of corporate heads can have weapons in the Hegemony. The rest, if caught with a gun, immediately die. Well, except for the pirate squads, those are actually supported and under the roof of the same corporations. In general, hopelessness. That leaves the Batarians to run anywhere, mostly to the Omega.
  "Da-ad! Da-ad! Look how I drew a Barsik!" Gina came skipping up to him.
  "Well, let me see," Coel took the album and stared at the drawing with admiration.
  "Do you like it?" Avanti asked, looking lovingly at her father.
  "Very!" Anaker replied and hugged his daughter tightly to him.
  He loved his daughter. I loved her so much that I could feel it from afar. My father loves me very much too, but here it was just painful. Gina feels it and twists the ropes out of her father just like that. Even now, he's clutching her so tightly, as if he's afraid she'll disappear.
  "Dad! You'll strangle me!" Gina wheezed.
  Then my father came out of the house, holding a bottle and two glasses in his left hand, and a saucer with sliced lemon in his right. He put everything on the table, sat down in an armchair, opened a bottle that made a "pou" sound, and poured the golden liquid into glasses.
  "For luck, Anchor! Your brother will need it!"
  " Good luck, Michael!"
  They clinked glasses.
  Avanti is already back next to me on the porch, and again she is drawing something on a new sheet, periodically glancing at me. Her emotions are filled with fun and some kind of... adoration. Why she treats me like this, I just don't understand. Can she feel me? When I was the Messiah before, children and teenagers always stuck to me.
  ***
  I myself am red-haired and green-eyed, and my hair is such a bright color that I stand out among the kindergarten kids like a fly agaric on moss. Seen from afar. And my eye color is malachite green, bright and saturated. The doctors were perplexed at first, they said that people do not have such an eye color. Dad also kept wondering who I was like, there had never been any redheads in the family, either on my father's side or on my mother's. The father himself is light-haired and blue-eyed, a true Northerner. Mom has dark blond hair, with almost steel-gray eyes. And all the brothers, who are more like their father, who are like their mother, I'm the only one with red hair. Although I'm not offended. I'm always red-haired when I come as the messiah. But it's the first time I've had such greenish eyes. Damn, they almost glow in the dark.
  Anyway, we decided to check it out. They took my blood, went to a hospital in the city, did an analysis with the construction of a model for deciphering the genetic code, and got a blue-eyed blond man. We were very surprised, rechecked, and the result remained unchanged.
  Then Uncle Dahi and Aunt Ratnet got caught up in professional curiosity: How can this be? We picked up the mother's medical record, checked all the events during pregnancy and found out that, at the sixth month, an accident occurred at the enrichment complex: a pipeline with some kind of terrible chemical reagent for extracting element zero from the rock broke! A lot of intelligent people were poisoned, it's a good thing they didn't die. Well, then my mother worked in a factory emergency room and, helping the victims, she also got poisoned. That's how this reagent worked on me. How many arguments did we have in the kitchen about this?... Exposure to the "zero element" seemed to be a plus, but so far no effects have been noticeable. Anyway, it's not bad for me to be a redhead. I've already gotten used to my fiery hair. And my red wings look beautiful on her background.
  "Hey, hey! Igor! Ava-anti! Let's go for a walk!" there was a loud shout from the gate. Nasar was swinging on it like on a swing.
  "And where will we go?" Jean asked.
  It doesn't matter. Let's go to Uncle Aegikh, let him tell us a story about the Fleet.
  "Come on!" I say and throw the album on the porch. Avanti puts hers carefully, before closing and putting the pencils in the box. Keep an eye on them! I hear my father's voice and, turning around, I see a Barsik trotting after us.
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