an unprecedented state of excitement. Animals crawled out of cages with the arrival of heat, people missed the long winter hiding in burrows representatives of fauna. A tall guy walked slowly through the rows. People intuitively dispersed themselves without noticing freeing up the road in front of him, and the animals seeing him ran away to their holes and booths. The lion crouched in a corner when the strange citizen stopped at his enclosure.
"Nice dog," he said, smiling contentedly, and went to the door…
"Well, well… another equally tall man in dark glasses noted as he watched the scene, then made a few notes in a notebook and got lost in the crowd…
***
Captivating rhythms resounded from the main square of the city. They completely captured the attention of all those who heard them even from afar. People were rapidly gathering around the lone drummer who had merged in a single dance of body and space with rhythms flying out from under his sticks. These rhythms sounded so exciting and rich, as if they had some diabolical seductive power that you can't fight, that you can't resist. People around the drummer became more and more, cars stopped at the roadsides, on the balconies of buildings located in the hearing zone, companies jostled. Open mouths, admiring glances and these overtaking each other emissions of energy, which were mercilessly distributed to the space by a young guy-virtuoso…
And suddenly, in an instant, everything was quiet. The drummer abruptly cut the song short before playing it to the end. Not immediately began to be heard annoyed exclamations, the audience was eager to continue. The drummer sat motionless, frozen in an awkward position with sticks in his hands. Gradually, he began to make barely visible movements, as if extricating himself from the inside of the web. His movements were slow, somewhat jelly-like. He finally lowered his hands, smoothly straightened his back, and, with difficulty turning his head to a normal position, said loudly, closing his eyes:
"If you do that again, I'll stick these sticks in you, you know where." And I'll do this!
The drummer beat a rapid beat, then turned around.
– Hello, Tikhon. I'm sorry, I didn't think you were still falling for these tricks, " the man in dark glasses said.
– In order to play like this, you have to be open, and when I'm open, I'm vulnerable. We will talk not here, – the guy-virtuoso answered. He nodded to a nearby van and left the tool and went with the waiting man. The van pulled up in front of the parting crowd, and two people began to quickly put the equipment in the car. The crowd began to disperse, and the parked cars continued on their way.
***
"Why did you come?" the drummer asked, sitting in the passenger compartment of a luxury car.
The man behind the wheel took off his sunglasses, put them on the dashboard, and turned off the ignition. There was a hazy emptiness around the car. This place was called the Bay. Random people rarely appeared here, since the area was quite remote from the city, and the vowel was only "for their own".
"I've got a new horse," the driver said, patting the steering wheel.
The drummer was silent, waiting for an answer, his eyes fixed on the window.
– Tikhon, I need your help.
"You personally or the order?" the guy asked, not taking his eyes off the window.
– The task is set by the order, but my interest in this is also there.
The drummer grunted significantly and got out of the car. The driver also left the cabin and went after the guy.
"You know, Vahe, I don't help occult communities, none of them," the guy said calmly, not turning around, knowing that the driver was following him.
"I know, but I also know that there is no way out of the order. Those who are not with us are against us.
"Are you here to remind me of this?" Bartholomew decided that I would comply with his request, fearing retribution, as you call it.
– Tikhon… you're not a stupid person. I found you, and they will find you. Maybe you shouldn't fight with those who gave you everything.
The drummer turned and stared into his opponent's eyes. This look carried great power and no less danger.
"I'm just passing it on," Vahe said, raising his hands peaceably.
– You have a worthy opponent, and you decided to push the heads of those who are dangerous to the order. I recognize Bartholomew's methods. What do… you passed it on, I heard it.
"Will you pass something back?" asked in the back of the departing drummer Vahe.
The drummer turned again.
– In response… Look, " he pointed at the car, running his index finger down it, then closing his index finger with his thumb and separating them.
The car split into two equal halves, as if cut by an invisible laser along the hull.
– Tell them that Tikhon is still in shape, don't play with me. I love the world, I build the world… but I can fight better than anyone!
The drummer turned and left.
– Why did you ask? Vahe said irritably, peering inside the sprawled body of the car…
He took his sunglasses out of the car, put them on, smiled, and disappeared into thin air.
***
Gideon returned from the zoo to his rented apartment in a good mood. Fifteen years of study in seclusion were not in vain. He would probably have forgotten how to speak if he had not mastered the technique of knowledge that allows you to speak any language in the world without learning it by traditional methods. The language of animals, birds, and plants became the man's native language. The trip to the zoo was a kind of test. As he passed the cages, he heard the cries of animals, recognized them, translated them, and answered some quietly without attracting public attention. Intuitively, he instilled in them a brief sense of danger, so that people would not feel it. All the experiments were crowned with success. Gideon pretended not to notice the look on his face of a man from the order, but in fact he specifically declared himself to make certain disturbances in the retinue of Bartholomew, a man with whom fate had brought him together almost twenty years ago.
***
In those early years, orphans from all over the country were distributed among orphanages. The children did not know by whose will and unspoken order the entrance testing was conducted among all institutions of this type. Teachers evaluated the results according to a ready-made template, without going into details, the results were passed to the management. And those already in turn selected the persons interested in them, from new arrivals, and redirected them to the special block. The institution, called a special unit, had the formal status of an institution for the education of children with disabilities. In fact, children from all over the country were brought here not at all flawed. The tests performed in children's homes, allowed to identify the small percentage of children who had a special type of thinking. They were not Laggards, they were special children whose innate abilities and capabilities far exceeded even many adult representatives of the human race. The order of the Black hand was engaged in tracking such children and taking them under the control of a given ideology from an early age. In this occult community, children were given knowledge not available to most people. Ancient manuscripts hidden by the priests, intended to transmit knowledge to every person who came to this world through the heads of clans, chiefs, and fathers of families, were stolen and removed from the capitals of
