Afterglow. The Justification of Chaos - стр. 29
“Thank Mother,” he muttered bitterly. “If you had been outside in the evening or at night, you probably wouldn't have survived,” the soldier said, shaking his head thoughtfully as I tried to keep myself from panicking.
“Robert,” one of the group, a tall man with light hair and dark eyes, approached the man walking next to us and whispered something to him.
“Do everything you can,” said the man, whose name was Robert. I gathered that he was the group leader. The second soldier shook his head sadly.
“Too much blood,” he said curtly. Robert grunted and looked at us.
“Is there a pharmacy nearby?”
“Yes,” Sam nodded. “Right by the entrance. The first pavilion on the left.”
“Take Stan and get what you need,” Robert instructed his subordinate. “We'll be in the basement. And, Michael,” the commander held the man for a moment, “do everything you can under the circumstances.”
“Understood,” the man nodded, then turned back to the group. “Taren!”
Two soldiers moved ahead.
Robert continued to ask Sam and me short, monosyllabic questions, mostly regarding whether we had encountered the infected, what we had seen and heard, and where we had been when we faced the consequences of the infection's spread. When I responded that we were journalists here to gather material, the soldier suddenly smirked, studying our faces intently and with interest.
“Where did you come from?”
“Northeast of the Old Frontiers,” Sam said immediately, almost reflexively, and I quickly elbowed him hard in the ribs. Dort winced, either from pain or realization, and looked away. But it was already said. There was no taking it back.
“Frontiers?” Robert asked again, now looking directly into my eyes. “And how did you make it to the north of the Isthmus Region?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?” I tried to respond firmly, although my heart did a somersault and dropped to my heels.
“No, quite straightforward. I'm curious how the customs officials granted you permission to cross the checkpoints and how the reapers let you through. The directives of the last days weren't favorable.”
“Apparently, due to the importance of our investigation, we were allowed to proceed,” I said evasively, holding the soldier's gaze, then turned away, silently praying to the heavens that Robert wouldn’t ask more questions. I wasn’t ready to come up with a lie. The man seemed to understand. He asked the question but not the expected one, and it was even somewhat surprising:
“Military correspondents?”
“No,” I answered quietly and weakly after a brief pause. “Civilian journalists.”
We moved quickly. The sensation was like a coma, an intoxicated daze. The situation itself felt no more real than a staged performance: the soldiers followed strangers into the unknown, while we blindly hoped they could help us. My mind was in chaos. I felt like nothing more than a puppet, with blind faith and a panicked horror. What had I hoped for? What was I afraid of? The uncertainty was grinding me down and exhausting me.
A shattered helicopter. A police car. The blacked-out windows of a store. Doors. Down the stairs. The bookstore. Soldiers moving, communicating with silent gestures. Flickering dots of their sights. The grave silence broken by the hum of flashing lights.