Евгений Попов – PROPHECY (a collection of speculative fiction) (страница 4)

Epilogue

May 1, 2030, Washington.

Ellis stepped onto the balcony of her apartment. The sky was illuminated by an unprecedented meteor shower. Thousands of sparks fell, burning up in the atmosphere.

"This is Zeus raging because his will was thwarted," whispered a familiar, gentle voice in her mind. "But do not be afraid. All is well."

From that day on, Ellis Rogers often heard this voice—the voice of Persephone. The goddess helped her in difficult moments, making her kinder, more patient, more beautiful within. Ellis resigned from the CIA, submitting a letter of resignation citing "incompatibility with values: humanity."

Yellowstone remained silent. Humanity had been given a chance.

A year later, Ellis happened to meet a man in a bookstore who was flipping through a collection of Greek myths. He looked up. It was Peter. They smiled at each other, feeling that their meeting was no coincidence.

Beauty had saved the world. Love had saved the world. They simply needed a little help.

The Lesser Angel

1.

November 24, 2024. Krasnoarmeysk—called Pokrovsk by the Ukrainians—had become hell. Not figuratively, but in the most literal sense of the word. The city's dense layout constricted the streets, turning every block into a concrete jungle where death lurked around every corner, from every basement, from every attic.

Staff Sergeant Mikhail Yermolin pressed himself against a shattered wall, moving in short dashes between his platoon's positions. They had dug in across three half-destroyed buildings on a single street. Control of the city was already theirs—about sixty percent, according to reports from above—but that didn't make things any easier. Across the road, in a low-slung private house with blown-out windows and in the nine-story apartment building next to it, the enemy was entrenched.

"Keep your head down!" Mikhail shouted to a young machine gunner nicknamed Chuk, who had tried to change position. As if to underscore his words, a dry, sharp crack sounded somewhere to the right, and a bullet ricocheted off a piece of rebar with a nasty whine.

The sniper in the house across the way was working professionally and brazenly. A machine gunner in the neighboring building was hosing down the street with bursts, keeping their men pinned. The road was churned with craters, wrecked vehicles stood as blackened skeletons, and the sidewalks were littered with shattered bricks.

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