Evgenia Gorskaya
Gift or Curse
© Gorskaya E., 2014
© Design. Eksmo Publishing House LLC, 2014
Tatyana Ustinova
The Great Power of a True Detective
Writing detective stories is difficult - I say this as a writer who has written a number of detective stories. I also dare to say that detective fiction is a serious, intellectual read. Well, of course, a correctly written detective story!.. The reader follows the plot invented by the author, unable to tear himself away - this is precisely the great power of a real detective story and a real detective author: to captivate, lure, make one wander in labyrinths, fear and rejoice, sympathize and be indignant. Evgenia Gorskaya is a real detective author. It is impossible to tear yourself away from her books.
But it also happens differently. At the beginning of the twentieth century there lived a Canadian writer, Stephen Leacock, who became famous mainly for his lungs. humorous stories. Leacock laughed at the detectives of the day; he said that any detective story is wildly successful right up to the denouement. Of course: the great detective is wandering in the dark, the police are at yet another dead end, the evidence has disappeared, and the heroine has been kidnapped by a villain and is now in mortal danger! And this is where the author would like to finish his story, but he can’t! And you have to somehow... deal with all this, come up with an explanation for what is happening, but it turns out clumsily, far-fetched, ineptly.
Exactly a hundred years have passed, but nothing has changed!.. Many magnificent and exciting detective stories do not have any decent outcome. There are huge holes in the plot, the characters act illogically, and the entire investigation turns out to be a simple scheme, often tied to one or more coincidences. Having finished reading this kind of book, I feel like I was duped by being given a fake.
When it came to an end new detective"Gift or Curse" by Evgenia Gorskaya, I also felt disappointment, perhaps even resentment, but of a fundamentally different kind! evening.
It would seem almost impossible to write a book that keeps you in suspense from the very beginning to last page. So that the action only increases, so that the plot noose tightens ever tighter, so that the most powerful emotions- love and hatred - beat over the edge, and at every turn the story made a dizzying somersault, turning the whole action upside down, forcing the heroes to seek salvation where salvation seems impossible. But Evgenia Gorskaya succeeded!..
I was still sure that it was impossible to combine a detective story with “suspense” - I don’t like this word!.. It seems far-fetched, too cinematic and to this day I associated only with Alfred Hitchcock and his “The Birds”. And in general, these two genres seemed mutually exclusive to me. Because a detective story is a mystery that requires a coherent narrative and impeccable logic. For suspense, mystery alone is not enough. And Hitchcock generally believed that it was harmful. “Suspense” should immediately capture our attention, lay all its cards on the table, play on our fears without embarrassment or pity, plunging us – viewers and readers – into a state of anxious anticipation of something invisible, but grandiosely terrible.
And it is all the more surprising that Gorskaya, in her new book “Gift or Curse,” managed to combine these two seemingly incompatible components: an ideal detective story and depressing “suspense.” The result is a bright, incredibly tasty and instantly intoxicating cocktail of crystal-clear logic and a whirlwind of genuine emotions.
Natalya, the main character of the novel, has a rare gift - she knows how to foresee trouble. But will she be able to save herself when bullets start whistling overhead? And after all, she is an ordinary programmer. Who needed to kill her? What could she have seen or had the temerity to hear? And is this hunt connected with the death of her son - a nightmare that, it seemed, was left in the past forever? Who will protect her? How to guess who is a friend and who is a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing? Or will it still stop?
Evgenia Gorskaya’s new detective story seems to consist entirely of unexpected plot twists. And at each stage the intrigue becomes more and more intense, and the stakes become higher, and at the very end it turns out that the villain really is... However, read on!
Having heard from a friend that she had seen her husband with another woman, Natasha was almost not surprised. She had long ago mentally put an end to their marriage, because her mother had given her the gift of anticipating trouble... Problems at work made her forget about her personal worries for a while: someone was trying to break into her computer. But who might need this and why? Natasha has no enemies, her boss respects her, she is very friendly with his little son Seryozha, whom he often brings to work. Alexandrina, the boss’s wife, even began to be jealous... And then events began to develop completely unpredictably! Natasha's cell phone disappeared, and after comparing the facts and trusting her gift, she realized: the phone was stolen in order to deceive Seryozha from school. We urgently need to figure out how to prevent the kidnapping of the boy!
On our website you can download the book “Gift or Curse” by Evgenia Gorskaya for free and without registration in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format, read the book online or buy the book in the online store.
Writing detective stories is difficult - I say this as a writer who has written a number of detective stories. I also dare to say that detective fiction is a serious, intellectual read. Well, of course, a correctly written detective story!.. The reader follows the plot invented by the author, unable to tear himself away - this is precisely the great power of a real detective story and a real detective author: to captivate, lure, make one wander in labyrinths, fear and rejoice, sympathize and be indignant. Evgenia Gorskaya is a real detective author. It is impossible to tear yourself away from her books.
But it also happens differently. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there lived a Canadian writer, Stephen Leacock, who became famous mainly for his light, humorous stories. Leacock laughed at the detectives of the day; he said that any detective story is wildly successful right up to the denouement. Of course: the great detective is wandering in the dark, the police are at yet another dead end, the evidence has disappeared, and the heroine has been kidnapped by a villain and is now in mortal danger! And this is where the author would like to finish his story, but he can’t! And you have to somehow... deal with all this, come up with an explanation for what is happening, but it turns out clumsily, far-fetched, ineptly.
Exactly a hundred years have passed, but nothing has changed!.. Many magnificent and exciting detective stories do not have any decent outcome. There are huge holes in the plot, the characters act illogically, and the entire investigation turns out to be a simple scheme, often tied to one or more coincidences. Having finished reading this kind of book, I feel like I was duped by being given a fake.
When the new detective story “Gift or Curse” by Evgenia Gorskaya came to an end, I also felt disappointment, perhaps even resentment, but of a fundamentally different kind! in which I was lucky to live the whole evening.
It would seem almost impossible to write a book that keeps you in suspense from the very beginning to the last page. So that the action only increases, so that the noose of the plot tightens ever tighter, so that the strongest emotions - love and hate - overflow, and the story at each turn makes a dizzying somersault, turning the whole action upside down, forcing the heroes to seek salvation where there is salvation seems impossible. But Evgenia Gorskaya succeeded!..
I was still sure that it was impossible to combine a detective story with “suspense” - I don’t like this word!.. It seems far-fetched, too cinematic and to this day I associated only with Alfred Hitchcock and his “The Birds”. And in general, these two genres seemed mutually exclusive to me. Because a detective story is a mystery that requires a coherent narrative and impeccable logic. For suspense, mystery alone is not enough. And Hitchcock generally believed that it was harmful. “Suspense” should immediately capture our attention, lay all its cards on the table, play on our fears without embarrassment or pity, plunging us – viewers and readers – into a state of anxious anticipation of something invisible, but grandiosely terrible.
And it is all the more surprising that Gorskaya, in her new book “Gift or Curse,” managed to combine these two seemingly incompatible components: an ideal detective story and depressing “suspense.” The result is a bright, incredibly tasty and instantly intoxicating cocktail of crystal-clear logic and a whirlwind of genuine emotions.
Natalya, the main character of the novel, has a rare gift - she knows how to foresee trouble. But will she be able to save herself when bullets start whistling overhead? And after all, she is an ordinary programmer. Who needed to kill her? What could she have seen or had the temerity to hear? And is this hunt connected with the death of her son - a nightmare that, it seemed, was left in the past forever? Who will protect her? How to guess who is a friend and who is a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing? Or will it still stop?
Evgenia Gorskaya’s new detective story seems to consist entirely of unexpected plot twists. And at each stage the intrigue becomes more and more intense, and the stakes become higher, and at the very end it turns out that the villain really is... However, read on!
You have a new detective ahead! How I envy you guys!
He understood that he could not leave her alive, and he knew that there was little time left.
The most unpleasant thing was that he liked her, he was even attached to her in his own way, and now he acutely regretted that in her place there was not another woman, unfamiliar to him, or at least less attractive.
There was little time left, and he needed to think through everything to the smallest detail. He lay still, looking at the ceiling, and carefully crawled out from under the blanket.
Zinaida died.
This is some kind of nonsense, Natasha thought. Something like this would come to mind... She tried to see through the thick curtains whether at least one window in the house opposite was on fire. None of them were on fire, which meant it was still deep night. Natasha tossed around a little, realized that she wouldn’t fall asleep, and quietly, trying not to wake Victor, she got up.
She carefully closed the bedroom door and turned on the light. It's half past five, by Moscow standards it's time to sleep.
The only Zinaida that Natasha knew, or rather, not that she knew, but that she had heard a lot about, was their distant relative. This Zina was either my father’s second cousin or some distant aunt. Their family had few relatives, and their parents tried to maintain relationships with everyone, but Zinaida did not want to know them, which always caused bewilderment and tears in her mother, and anger in her father. Aunt Zinaida lived somewhere in the Central Russian wilderness, where pensions were very tiny and prices were almost Moscow, but she did not accept any help from them.
Natasha went into the kitchen, lit the gas, put the kettle on the stove and began to look at the fire.
The door creaked quietly - it still woke Vitya.
– Can’t sleep? “The husband poured himself some water from a crystal jug, drank it and rinsed the glass. The jug was given by my mother-in-law three years ago. Natasha couldn't stand him. The jug was almost impossible to wash, and besides, she didn’t understand why it was needed at all, when there are two kettles in the house: a regular one and an electric one, each of them always has boiled water, and they never heat them up at the same time.
The husband leaned over, kissed her on the neck and slightly squeezed her shoulders, which meant - you like to sit here, well, sit, and I’ll go to bed.
When he couldn’t sleep, it almost turned into a tragedy: he would definitely start to find out if there was a magnetic storm at the moment, if there was a rise or, conversely, a fall. atmospheric pressure whether there is a full moon or a new moon or who knows what else. During the obligatory nightly call to his mother-in-law, he always told him that he slept very poorly, that now he was all broken and was afraid of not getting enough sleep the coming night. He also expected sympathy from her, from his wife, in such cases, but Natasha did not express sympathy, she always believed that a man should be able to endure hardships and not pay attention to ordinary insomnia. She did not sympathize with him, and Victor was offended for several days.
Natasha habitually reminded herself that her husband is far from the worst: he doesn’t make scandals over trifles, doesn’t demand culinary delights from her, doesn’t demand sterile cleanliness in the apartment, even often gives flowers, but everyone has shortcomings. She has a good husband, but she has to remind herself of this more and more often.
The kettle boiled. Natasha poured the tea leaves directly into the cup, poured boiling water over it and began to warm her hands on it. Victor was always infuriated by her tea drinking: tea had to be brewed exclusively in a teapot. There were two such teapots: one for black tea, the other for green. Just a year ago, it wouldn’t have occurred to Natasha to brew tea in a cup, then it seemed to her: everything that Vitya thinks and does is the only right thing, and if she doesn’t act the way he wants, it means she doesn’t understand something and does not live up to his wife's high standard.
Evgenia Gorskaya with the novel Gift or Curse for download in fb2 format.
Having heard from a friend that she had seen her husband with another woman, Natasha was almost not surprised. She had long ago mentally put an end to their marriage, because her mother had given her the gift of anticipating trouble... Problems at work made her forget about her personal worries for a while: someone was trying to break into her computer. But who might need this and why? Natasha has no enemies, her boss respects her, she is very friendly with his little son Seryozha, whom he often brings to work. Alexandrina, the boss’s wife, even began to be jealous... And then events began to develop completely unpredictably! Natasha's cell phone disappeared, and after comparing the facts and trusting her gift, she realized: the phone was stolen in order to deceive Seryozha from school. We urgently need to figure out how to prevent the kidnapping of the boy!
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Currently available on the Internet a large number of electronic literature. The publication Gift or Curse is dated 2014, belongs to the “Detective” genre in the “Tatyana Ustinova Recommends” series and is published by Eksmo Publishing House. Perhaps the book has not yet entered the Russian market or has not appeared in electronic format. Don’t be upset: just wait, and it will definitely appear on UnitLib in fb2 format, but in the meantime you can download and read other books online. Read and enjoy educational literature with us. Free download in formats (fb2, epub, txt, pdf) allows you to download books directly to e-book. Remember, if you really liked the novel, save it on your wall in social network, let your friends see it too!
© Gorskaya E., 2014
© Design. Eksmo Publishing House LLC, 2014
Tatyana Ustinova
The Great Power of a True Detective
Writing detective stories is difficult - I say this as a writer who has written a number of detective stories. I also dare to say that detective fiction is a serious, intellectual read. Well, of course, a correctly written detective story!.. The reader follows the plot invented by the author, unable to tear himself away - this is precisely the great power of a real detective story and a real detective author: to captivate, lure, make one wander in labyrinths, fear and rejoice, sympathize and be indignant. Evgenia Gorskaya is a real detective author. It is impossible to tear yourself away from her books.
But it also happens differently. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there lived a Canadian writer, Stephen Leacock, who became famous mainly for his light, humorous stories. Leacock laughed at the detectives of the day; he said that any detective story is wildly successful right up to the denouement. Of course: the great detective is wandering in the dark, the police are at yet another dead end, the evidence has disappeared, and the heroine has been kidnapped by a villain and is now in mortal danger! And this is where the author would like to finish his story, but he can’t! And you have to somehow... deal with all this, come up with an explanation for what is happening, but it turns out clumsily, far-fetched, ineptly.
Exactly a hundred years have passed, but nothing has changed!.. Many magnificent and exciting detective stories do not have any decent outcome. There are huge holes in the plot, the characters act illogically, and the entire investigation turns out to be a simple scheme, often tied to one or more coincidences. Having finished reading this kind of book, I feel like I was duped by being given a fake.
When the new detective story “Gift or Curse” by Evgenia Gorskaya came to an end, I also felt disappointment, perhaps even resentment, but of a fundamentally different kind! in which I was lucky to live the whole evening.
It would seem almost impossible to write a book that keeps you in suspense from the very beginning to the last page. So that the action only increases, so that the noose of the plot tightens ever tighter, so that the strongest emotions - love and hate - overflow, and the story at each turn makes a dizzying somersault, turning the whole action upside down, forcing the heroes to seek salvation where there is salvation seems impossible. But Evgenia Gorskaya succeeded!..
I was still sure that it was impossible to combine a detective story with “suspense” - I don’t like this word!.. It seems far-fetched, too cinematic and to this day I associated only with Alfred Hitchcock and his “The Birds”. And in general, these two genres seemed mutually exclusive to me. Because a detective story is a mystery that requires a coherent narrative and impeccable logic.
For suspense, mystery alone is not enough. And Hitchcock generally believed that it was harmful. “Suspense” should immediately capture our attention, lay all its cards on the table, play on our fears without embarrassment or pity, plunging us – viewers and readers – into a state of anxious anticipation of something invisible, but grandiosely terrible.
And it is all the more surprising that Gorskaya, in her new book “Gift or Curse,” managed to combine these two seemingly incompatible components: an ideal detective story and depressing “suspense.” The result is a bright, incredibly tasty and instantly intoxicating cocktail of crystal-clear logic and a whirlwind of genuine emotions.
Natalya, the main character of the novel, has a rare gift - she knows how to foresee trouble. But will she be able to save herself when bullets start whistling overhead? And after all, she is an ordinary programmer. Who needed to kill her? What could she have seen or had the temerity to hear? And is this hunt connected with the death of her son - a nightmare that, it seemed, was left in the past forever? Who will protect her? How to guess who is a friend and who is a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing? Or will it still stop?
Evgenia Gorskaya’s new detective story seems to consist entirely of unexpected plot twists. And at each stage the intrigue becomes more and more intense, and the stakes become higher, and at the very end it turns out that the villain really is... However, read on!
You have a new detective ahead! How I envy you guys!
Monday, November 9
He understood that he could not leave her alive, and he knew that there was little time left.
The most unpleasant thing was that he liked her, he was even attached to her in his own way, and now he acutely regretted that in her place there was not another woman, unfamiliar to him, or at least less attractive.
There was little time left, and he needed to think through everything to the smallest detail. He lay still, looking at the ceiling, and carefully crawled out from under the blanket.
Zinaida died.
This is some kind of nonsense, Natasha thought. Something like this would come to mind... She tried to see through the thick curtains whether at least one window in the house opposite was on fire. None of them were on fire, which meant it was still deep night. Natasha tossed around a little, realized that she wouldn’t fall asleep, and quietly, trying not to wake Victor, she got up.
She carefully closed the bedroom door and turned on the light. It's half past five, by Moscow standards it's time to sleep.
The only Zinaida that Natasha knew, or rather, not that she knew, but that she had heard a lot about, was their distant relative. This Zina was either my father’s second cousin or some distant aunt. Their family had few relatives, and their parents tried to maintain relationships with everyone, but Zinaida did not want to know them, which always caused bewilderment and tears in her mother, and anger in her father. Aunt Zinaida lived somewhere in the Central Russian wilderness, where pensions were very tiny and prices were almost Moscow, but she did not accept any help from them.
Natasha went into the kitchen, lit the gas, put the kettle on the stove and began to look at the fire.
The door creaked quietly - it still woke Vitya.
– Can’t sleep? “The husband poured himself some water from a crystal jug, drank it and rinsed the glass. The jug was given by my mother-in-law three years ago. Natasha couldn't stand him. The jug was almost impossible to wash, and besides, she didn’t understand why it was needed at all, when there are two kettles in the house: a regular one and an electric one, each of them always has boiled water, and they never heat them up at the same time.
The husband leaned over, kissed her on the neck and slightly squeezed her shoulders, which meant - you like to sit here, well, sit, and I’ll go to bed.
When he couldn’t sleep, it almost turned into a tragedy: he always began to find out whether there was a magnetic storm at the moment, whether there was an increase or, conversely, a drop in atmospheric pressure, whether there was a full moon or a new moon, or God knows what else. During the obligatory nightly call to his mother-in-law, he always told him that he slept very poorly, that now he was all broken and was afraid of not getting enough sleep the coming night. He also expected sympathy from her, from his wife, in such cases, but Natasha did not express sympathy, she always believed that a man should be able to endure hardships and not pay attention to ordinary insomnia. She did not sympathize with him, and Victor was offended for several days.
Natasha habitually reminded herself that her husband is far from the worst: he doesn’t make scandals over trifles, doesn’t demand culinary delights from her, doesn’t demand sterile cleanliness in the apartment, even often gives flowers, but everyone has shortcomings. She has a good husband, but she has to remind herself of this more and more often.
The kettle boiled. Natasha poured the tea leaves directly into the cup, poured boiling water over it and began to warm her hands on it. Victor was always infuriated by her tea drinking: tea had to be brewed exclusively in a teapot. There were two such teapots: one for black tea, the other for green. Just a year ago, it wouldn’t have occurred to Natasha to brew tea in a cup, then it seemed to her: everything that Vitya thinks and does is the only right thing, and if she doesn’t act the way he wants, it means she doesn’t understand something and does not live up to his wife's high standard.
A year has passed since she realized that it was difficult for her with her own husband.
Natasha took a sip of the fragrant liquid and closed her eyes with pleasure.
She saw Aunt Zinaida only once. Natasha was very young when her parents bought a car and drove with her to a small town to visit her aunt. Oddly enough, Natasha remembered Zinaida clearly: a tall, thin woman with curly dark hair and a white apron tied on a colorful dress. She held little Natasha close to her with one hand, stroked her head, and then took her to show the little yellow chickens in the neighboring area. Natasha also remembered that in Aunt Zina’s kitchen there was a large table covered with a beautiful oilcloth with bright orange sunflowers.
The aunt then practically kicked them out for some unknown reason, little Natasha did not know this and was surprised that her mother was crying and her father was angrily silent.
“Sasha,” my mother said, “she needs to be forgiven, she lost her son.”
“She’s lost her brains,” muttered the father.
Natasha didn’t understand how you could lose your son, much less lose your brains, and just in case, she asked:
- Is her son big?
“It’s big,” my mother answered, took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped away her tears.
Now Natasha knows that her aunt’s son died, after which for some reason she stopped all communication with relatives.
Natasha looked at the clock - it was time to wake Vitya, but her husband woke up on his own, made noise with the water in the bathroom and went into the kitchen.
She put oatmeal porridge and a saucepan of water on the fire for the eggs. Victor had breakfast exclusively with porridge and two eggs in a bag. Just a year ago, Natasha, choking, also picked at the porridge, which she couldn’t stand, and felt guilty for not liking healthy food. However, then she felt guilty all the time.
She thought, made herself two sandwiches with cheese and put them in the oven.
- This is to spite me, right? – the husband asked offended, watching her manipulations.
“No, Vitya,” Natasha tried not to let irritation show in her voice. – I just don’t like porridge. And I'm tired of eggs.
– You used to love porridge.
Natasha remained silent. It is difficult, almost impossible, to explain why she used to want to please him so much that she agreed not only to eat the hated porridge, but to do without food at all.
They ate breakfast in complete silence, the husband frowned and looked to the side. A year ago she would have immediately started fawning, begging for forgiveness, then would have called him endlessly until he changed his anger to mercy, but now she almost did not notice his silence, returning her thoughts first to Zinaida, and then to the upcoming working day, and why... Then she shuddered in fear when she heard a sharp telephone ring.
- Natasha? – the mother-in-law was surprised. For some reason, she was always surprised when she heard Natasha’s voice, as if she never expected to find her in her son’s apartment. Although in fact the apartment was Natasha’s, it was inherited from her grandmother.
– Hello, Vera Antonovna.
- Is Vitya at home?
- At home. – Natasha handed the phone to her husband.
For some reason, she was sure that her mother was calling and would now say something about Zinaida. In fact, it could hardly be my mother: my parents were on vacation in Italy, and if they called, it would most likely be on a mobile phone. Calling was expensive, and they preferred to send text messages.
Still, thoughts about her aunt haunted her.
Natasha took her cell phone out of her bag and, not sparing her parents’ money, dialed the number.
– Mom, have you heard from Zinaida lately?
“Not really,” the mother hesitated. - Why are you asking?
After that ill-fated trip, when the aunt refused to deal with them, my mother, through some very distant relatives or just acquaintances, contacted Zinaidina’s neighbor Shura, corresponded with her, often sent money so that she would look after her aunt, and information I always had about Zinaida.
- Yes, I remembered her for some reason. I don’t know why.
You need to get rid of stupid thoughts from your head. You never know what you might dream about... Natasha said goodbye to her mother and began to get ready for work.
She was lucky - the tram that arrived went right to the office, she didn’t have to change to another vehicle, and she was one of the first to arrive at the building. In fact, they didn’t have a strictly regulated working day; everyone came and left when it was convenient for everyone. It was possible not to come at all. There's only one thing you can't do - not do your job. For this they were fired immediately, without any reprimands or scoldings.
The company had occupied an entire wing of a large office building for several years; there were security guards at the entrance and an electronic pass system that recorded arrival and departure. All employees knew that management periodically removes data from electronic system, and tried to maintain an eight-hour working day. And Natasha tried.
She unlocked the room - there was no one in the department yet, went to her desk and froze: something was wrong. The large black cat's eye, Victor's gift, lay a little further from the keyboard than usual. A stack of small square pieces of paper with her scribbled notes for memory visibly protruded from under the keyboard, and she always carefully pushed the pieces of paper under it so that they were not visible.
Natasha turned on the computer and went to water the flowers. There were a lot of flowers, and for her, the only woman in the department, it was almost extra work.
She has already looked email, as usual in the morning, and raised the keyboard to remember the latest notes on pieces of paper, but suddenly lowered it, looked mindlessly at the screen and clicked the mouse, looking through the frames his programs. Natasha wrote the program about a year and a half ago out of nothing to do, when one project was already completed, and for another the customers still did not sign the contract. The program automatically launched the camera every time you turned on the computer and also automatically turned it off exactly a minute later. The camera recorded someone sitting in front of the computer.
On Friday at 22:41 her computer was turned on by Stas Moroshin. He worked in a neighboring department, and he never had any joint projects with Natasha.
It was supposed to turn off the computer and immediately call the director, but Natasha sat dumbfounded and motionless. Until I was afraid that I was going to cry for some unknown reason. Something in Lately she became tearful, like her mother. She loved to cry at the slightest reason.
Then Natasha resolutely headed towards next room, dreaming that Moroshin would be in place, and sighed with relief when he saw the guy leaning back in his chair.
– Why did you get into my computer? – Natasha asked affectionately. Seeing Stas, she immediately somehow calmed down, she no longer wanted to cry, she even felt like the evil and cheerful witch Gella and almost felt sorry for the unlucky Moroshin, who would now have a very hard time.
He was so clearly frightened that Natasha felt even more sorry for him.
- I didn’t go anywhere! Are you crazy? – he was indignant. He was indignant quietly so that no one would hear.
“Stasik,” Natasha sat down on an empty chair and swayed slightly left and right, “speak quickly and clearly, otherwise I’ll call Pyotr Mikhalych now.” I’m doing this as a favor, spending time on you.
Pyotr Mikhailovich Saprykin was both the director and owner of the company, Natasha knew that the employees were afraid of him, and young people like Moroshin were simply in awe. Kalganova herself was not afraid of the director, she liked him and respected him very much.
It’s strange that she thought of Moroshin as “youth,” as if she no longer considered herself young. Stas was, of course, younger, but not that much, about four years. Well, maybe five.
“I didn’t get into your computer,” Stas continued to whisper indignantly.
Natasha extended her hand and defiantly admired the ring with a large diamond. The ring was from the manufacturers, and Natasha had long and seriously considered it her talisman. The factory was owned by her paternal great-great-grandfather, and the ring was the little that was preserved after the terrible revolutionary and war years. Mom didn’t like it, she always wore another one, also with a large diamond, and this was given to Natasha by her parents for graduation.
- Stas, you are delaying me.
- Where did you get the idea? I didn't get into your computer! What, I have nothing else to do?
– Who got into whose computer? “Hello,” a low voice came from very close by.
Natasha and Stas looked up and were stunned: director Saprykin himself stood next to him, and behind him was his deputy Anatoly Konstantinovich Vydrin. In fact, thin, imposing, in an expensive suit, Vydrin looked much more representative than the stocky, rough-faced Saprykin and could more easily pass for a director and owner. Pyotr Mikhailovich looked more like a tractor driver who put on a suit to show off at a village wedding.
The work desks in the company were separated from each other by high bookshelves, and it was difficult to notice those entering the room, so they did not notice.
Hacking a password on someone else's computer was punishable by immediate dismissal, and they both knew it.
- What's going on here? – the director asked again. - Natasha!
“Nothing, Pyotr Mikhalych,” she mumbled, “it’s... a misunderstanding.” We'll figure it out ourselves.
She felt sorry for the fool Moroshin. And I didn’t want to end up in the role of an “informer.”
- Well, look. – After a pause, Saprykin shook his head reproachfully, and the authorities moved on.
- Send me a letter! In it you will write in detail why you went into my computer. If you don’t write until the evening, tomorrow I’ll tell Pyotr Mikhalych everything,” Natasha hissed and went to her workplace.
About two hours later, Vydrin unexpectedly called her.
“Come to me, please,” she heard a friendly voice.
She couldn’t stand Otter, for some unknown reason: she never had anything to do with him, and in his communication he was extremely polite, he kissed ladies’ hands when he met him, he never raised his voice, he never plotted intrigues. The ladies in the company adored him, but Natasha did not love him.
The deputy director's office was located at the very end of the corridor next to the director's office, and Natasha looked into Moroshin's room on the way - he never wrote her a letter. He wasn’t there, and she got angry: she didn’t want to go to Saprykin to complain.
“Natasha,” Anatoly Konstantinovich said sternly, as soon as she closed the office door behind her, “a virus has gone onto the network from your computer.”
- What?! – she gasped.
“Sit down,” the deputy director said.
- Bastard! – Natasha exhaled, standing like a pillar in front of Vydrin’s table.
“I don’t understand,” he was taken aback.
- This is not me for you. Sorry,” she muttered.
“I hope so,” Vydrin grinned and nodded towards the chair: “Sit down, sit down.”
Natasha sat down, and he stood up and walked around the office, putting his hands behind his head.
– So what happened to your computer? Natasha, this concerns not only you, but also the company, and playing guerrillas is inappropriate now.
For some reason, she was offended by the words about “guerrilla games,” but the deputy director was right, and she admitted:
– Moroshin for some reason got into my computer on Friday. At 22:41.
Actually, he assumed something similar after hearing the conversation of the young programmers, and now he praised himself for his insight.
- How did you know it was him? – Vydrin was surprised.
“I wrote a program,” Natasha sighed, “when the computer turns on, the program detects the person sitting opposite.”
“Yeah, well...” she shrugged, “there was nothing to do, so I wrote.”
“I wish you could use your energy for peaceful purposes,” he grinned. – The guys are now going to “clean” your computer. Walk for an hour.
Natasha did not understand what kind of energy she had and for what purposes it should be used, but she nodded in agreement and left the office.
She didn't like Anatoly Konstantinovich.
On the way, she again looked into the next room, and again Moroshin was not there.
The programmers from the administration group were tinkering with her computer, she had absolutely nothing to do, and after hanging around the office, she went outside for a walk, glad that it wasn’t raining. However, her eyes are not made up, and she is not afraid of rain.
By Moscow standards, the company was located almost next to Natasha’s house. In good weather, she even liked to walk home; the whole walk took only thirty minutes, maybe a little more.
She suddenly slowed down, surprised for the first time that in Last year It never occurred to her to walk. She no longer went for walks and almost stopped wearing makeup, but a year ago leaving the house with unmade up eyes was something completely unthinkable for her.
She has changed a lot over the past year.
A year ago it turned out that she was expecting a child. Victor was very happy, asked every morning how Natasha was feeling, made her buy stupid books about how to behave during pregnancy, and constantly reminded her of “responsibility.” Natasha didn’t feel any “responsibility”; even without reminders she wouldn’t do something to the detriment of the unborn baby; she, as before, went to work, to the shops, cooked food and was not going to treat herself as seriously ill.
On the same chilly autumn day she stood on tram stop. It was a boring, nasty rain, the wind was twisting the umbrella, but there was still no tram. The last thing she remembered from that morning was an elderly woman walking towards her suddenly screaming. She remembered this woman in a beige jacket with a hood so clearly, as if she had known her all her life.