I had no idea how great Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov was. But MSU, Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov Moscow State University, knew. The university, which was one of the Seven Sisters like where Stasia lived, was one of the best not just in the motherland but in the entire Western world. It was said that more than thirty thousand scholars studied there, so it must be a very serious place.
I was on the subway, heading for Moscow State University myself, but of course it wasn’t to study.
Why? I could have just sent Mariya—and anyway, those of us without passports couldn’t get in. Plus, I didn’t have money.
They said science was true, clear perception, a revelation of logic—but I was pretty far removed from clarity or revelation.
There just happened to be an enclave of similarly hapless losers living near the university.
I walked calmly from the banks of the Moscow River to the top of Sparrow Hill. On top of the hill was a great, spreading wasteland, as well as a valley of countless scrap-metal storehouses all packed together.
Garage Valley.
Some people called it the Shanghai slum, but I had trouble believing the city of Shanghai was half as bad as this. This was just a bunch of shacks propped up on the shallowest foundations. It was trouble in more ways than one.
It was a complete contrast to Moscow’s neat, gray skyline. If you wanted to call it a trash heap, well, I wouldn’t argue with you.
In which case, I guess “Shanghai slum” was supposed to mean “a slum like you would find in Shanghai.” I would never know unless I went to Shanghai, something I never expected to have the opportunity to do.
You would have to be a fool to come here with no particular objective in mind—but I had a goal, so maybe I wasn’t a complete fool.
I tried to look confident as I wove among the buildings of the valley, always mindful of the Tokarev at my chest.
I was heading for a barracks flying a flag of two snakes wrapped around a staff. I didn’t think that was much of a symbol for a hospital, but apparently it meant something important.
Well, everything’s important to somebody.
“Yo, Vrach—Doc! You around?”
The moment I opened the door, my nose was hit by the smell of alcohol—and I don’t mean liquor. Unlike the filthy surroundings just outside, Vrach’s hospital was spick-and-span, which made it pleasant. I had to admit, I felt a little bad tromping through in muddy boots.
A voice came from farther inside. “Oh, Danila. Yes, I’m here.” Then I heard some kind of scream. “Sorry, I’m in the middle of something. Just wait there.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I nodded, then sank onto the sofa in what served as the waiting room. It was a far cry from the one I used to have—no springs popping out of it, for one. It was a good sofa.
The hospital might have looked like a shack on the outside, but I knew inside it even contained machines made in Japan.
Vrach was a doctor.
Well, maybe that was obvious. I didn’t know if he was certified. But he was good. At the very least, I’d never heard of him screwing up and killing anyone. Okay, some might scoff and say the dead don’t complain, but if anyone did, I’d punch them.
Speaking as one of his patients, I couldn’t be more grateful for anything as I was for a doctor who would see people who didn’t have passports.
A bit later, a twentysomething man with black hair and delicate features came out of the back, wiping his hands.
“Hey. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
He was my generation, but he was spindly, tall, and had a narrow face. It was just what you would imagine if somebody asked you to picture a young doctor, and certainly—his good luck—he was very different from me.
But inside?
“Anyone dead?” I asked.
“Mechanization procedure,” Vrach said with a laugh. “But they made it through the nerve reconnection.”
“Hmm.”
I figured anyone who could practice doctoring here must be one tough bastard. There certainly weren’t any other physicians around. I knew that I, for one, wouldn’t have the confidence to look so cool right after doing a life-and-death procedure with essentially no equipment.
I waited until Vrach sat on the sofa across from me, then asked him what was on my mind: “How’s Nora?”
“She’s always a help. I can’t handle my cyborg patients alone when they go berserk.”
“I don’t suppose she gets a little violent and breaks them so you have more work to do, does she?”
“No, she’s gentle. She’s upbeat, she’s diligent, and she’s very kind.”
That made me feel better. I shrugged.
This was the guy who worked on Nora’s body, filling it with chrome. Under other circumstances, that might have driven me into a rage, but really, it was Nora’s fault. She’d weaseled her way into the hospital, acting like a poor little girl with no family—which I guess is pretty much what she was.
She’d started helping here and there to earn some small change, begging her way into Vrach’s good graces.
So, knowing perfectly well that she would hear me, I said, “She always knows how to act just like a cat, Doc. She just pretends to be a good kid in front of you.”
“Boo!”
There it was—the surprise attack. I ducked to avoid the electrically heated blade that came down from my blind spot, then eyeballed my attacker. A black cat with chrome eyes and the poorest excuse for a nurse’s hat on her head looked at me, her hackles raised menacingly.
“I don’t cause all that trouble for Vrach!” she snapped.
“Gee, I don’t know.”
“You’re the worst, Danya!”
I calmly parried as she hissed and tried to scratch me with one of her claws. I could see from the color that the power wasn’t on. Nothing to get bent out of shape about.
Even as I evaded Nora, I looked at the doctor, who smiled, a soft look in his eyes. Nora the stray cat might not have noticed, but—well. As long as I knew, I could relax.
“By the way, Doc, I had a little question for you. Got a minute?”
“I’ll be happy to help, if I know the answer.” Vrach nodded—he made it sound like this was just some idle chatter—then he rubbed his hands together as if to say, Now, what did you bring me today?
“Oh, and just for the record, I can’t tell you about my patients. Doctor-patient confidentiality, you know.”
“Zhalko <That’s a shame>. I heard the Krasniy Volk <Red Wolf> was hiding out here.”