We enter the town strictly according to plan. In the old orchards, it was indeed completely deserted. Once straight rows of apple trees now chaotically overgrown with young pines. Thin, dried-out branches of diseased trees twisted bizarrely against the night sky, resembling black tendrils of someone's spreading rhizome. Suddenly, it even seems as though I am no longer in the outskirts of yet another insignificant settlement. Not on the disputed border of a former Soviet state. But somewhere else entirely. And sometime else— in the future. And everything around— all this scorched, blasted, and war-fertilized land—is planted with these strange bare apple trees. Everywhere you look. All the way to the horizon. But they do not mourn the fallen, like the sadly bent willows. They do not rustle their leaves like birches. They do not scatter fluff like self-satisfied pyramidal poplars. They scratch at the sky with their black, gnarled fingers. And immovably wait for someone to fall into their deadly embrace. They wait for food. And every twig, every root, every tree trunk—it is me.
But fortunately, I am still here. A crunch comes from the right. Agnia's tentacles drag through the ground some Taras who foolishly decided to relieve himself in the bushes. The rhizome has already smeared his entire face with a black blotch, penetrated his throat, and is eating him from within. But the soldier, tied hand and foot, is still trying to resist. Like some giant cockroach caught in a spider's web. Tentacles on his body gain biomass, contract, break the man like a dry branch, pulling him under the turf. That's how his bones will lie there, under the apple tree.
"There's no one else," reports the girl. "Further on there are some rubble piles near the old cow sheds, and then you can go straight through the vegetable gardens to our dacha."
I nod. Trying to avoid open spaces, we sneak along the long brick wall. The buildings of the former livestock complex, soot-stained and long since losing their roofs after some sort of bombing.
Underfoot, among broken bricks, something round suddenly appears. I crouch down beside it to take a closer look. I turn over a round plaster head with my hand.
"Lenin... Apparently, they dragged him from the center of the village... And here's the rest of him," Agnia points to a split torso leaning against the wall. "Why do they, the Maidan supporters, break him everywhere? Does he get in their way? It's just stupidity..."
On the plaster torso and the brick wall around it are holes from bullets.
"They shot him here. And I think, not just him... Let's go."
We reach the target without incident. The door isn't locked, but propped up at the bottom with a brick. Everything is exactly as the informant described. There are no tripwires. And overall, the room seems untouched. Apparently, the valiant "defenders" were too embarrassed to raid the dwelling of their taxed population this time.
A small dacha, or rather a tiny hut. Judging by the furnishings, it belonged to a grandmother. Inside, there's a Soviet-era sofa and an old Panasonic television with a bulbous screen. In the corner, near the ceiling, there's an icon covered with a towel embroidered with South Russian patterns. Orthodox, indeed.
"This is definitely not very orthodox," Agnia jokingly remarks, echoing my thoughts. She shows me diagrams printed on A4 sheets she just pulled out from under the TV stand.
"You're snooping through other people's things again?"
"I'm inspecting the premises... You yourself said so."
"Inspection, not search. Personal belongings aren't included. You'd better check the coffee in the kitchen..."
"Do you mean coffee matters?" Agnia laughs. "You know what that is?"
"What?"
"A birth chart. And there's a Tarot deck lying nearby..."
"My grandmother probably had fun with it..."
"No... More likely our girl. It's fashionable now. Even special apps exist on phones."
"I don't even doubt it..."
"And the cards are in anime style," Agnia continues, showing me a colorful picture. "We could tell fortunes."
"You seem to understand all sorts of nonsense... Well, go ahead and have fun..."
While the girl busies herself in the dim light, I cautiously check the windows. We don't need any more unexpected snipers. The glass is intact, but carefully taped with scotch tape. The new owners clearly took care to preserve it. Outside the window is a rural street. A lone streetlamp somewhere in the distance. Across the street, another row of similar houses. Some kind of building, it seems—a former village store. Its doors and windows are boarded up. And further away lies our goal—the old bus depot. Concrete and brick buildings. The tallest one is about five stories high. A good height to keep the surrounding area under surveillance. Around it is a reinforced concrete fence bristling with protruding rebar. Inside are garages. That's where the militants set up their warehouse and repair shop. And, of course, they drove the truck with radioactive cargo inside. I wonder if they informed their own soldiers about what they brought? Or will they once again be betrayed in the dark? Yes, most likely. Why should they know? They'll kill everyone anyway. But we need to know the exact layout.
I sit down on the sofa, spreading my arms wide on its worn rectangular backrest. Threads of the rhizome begin to stretch out of me, descending along the upholstery, flowing onto the floor. They spread across it, intertwining like a convoluted fungal network, crawling through cracks in the boards onto the street, weaving into dense strands. Twisting into the ground, they head toward the bus depot. In about two hours, they'll be there. For now, I can rest. I finally close my eyes again...