# Operation Paracelsus

Ребекка Попова

## Chapter 1. Was there even a girl?


The sounds of a forgotten song are heard from somewhere, while Chloe coquettishly approaches the mirror to take one last look at herself before leaving the apartment. Neither more nor less - a pampered bohemian heroine of some fashionable film from those that are officially shown "on the big screens".


Perhaps now Chloe should get into a rather playful mood - with this thought she makes the usual subtle movement, as a result of which the shoulder strap of her top easily slides down, allowing everyone to admire her impressive cleavage.


To one her girl friend, whom they had not seen for a hundred years, Chloe proudly boasted when they met that, they say, she is now a certified "Call Girl" - in fact, it is, of course, something like a "special agent" in the women's appearance .. Contrary to her expectations, her friend in response, as they say, just rolled with laughter. Chloe could not understand what was the matter, but her friend flatly refused to explain the reason for her unexpected cheerfulness.


- Maybe you saw something like that ... in the Cinema? - the only thing Chloe was able to do was hiss angrily in response, temporarily speechless from amazement and some resentment, not coming up with anything more suitable, and, fortunately, uttering a slightly dangerous word "Cinema", without even almost faltering.

She happily noted to herself how, at the mention of Cinema, her friend turned pale for a moment - however, she immediately coped with her emotions and once again put on an imperturbable look.


Chloe was convinced that Call Girl sounds proudly, and she should not be ashamed of such a page in her biography ... In any case, the biography of each citizen is recorded on electronic media and stored "in a certain organization" - while saying these words , one is always supposed to cough meaningfully, strictly looking around everyone present - well, for example, her curator Peter always does this, and he knows very well what he is doing. And in order to avoid blackouts organized by some mythical, according to Chloe, "rebels", somewhere in the underground archives paper copies of personal files should be kept - like "experienced employees" claim that this is more reliable.


In fact, of course, Chloe shouldn't have talked so defiantly with her friend about films.

Oh, these films ... Chloe understood perfectly well that what she secretly does in her free time from work is not too commendable for her biography and is not even very good for her health, but somehow it gradually turned out that she addicted to going to these very underground cinemas.


Chloe involuntarily glances at the already almost washed off stamp left on her wrist from the last trip to such a cinema ... Usually these underground viewing rooms are located in the back rooms or basements of some pharmacies or cheap eateries - at least those few establishments, where the mediators brought Chloe, were located in such places. At the entrance to the movie room, some awfully cute and fidgety guy with restlessly shifting eyes, who is usually called Jerome or something like that, puts special bracelets on everyone who passes by him with an approving smile, and then activates them with the help of some tricky button, and then on all gadgets of the cinematic client the current date is automatically reset to some unrealistic figures - it's not for nothing that these underground cinematic travels are very reminiscent of time travel. Then at the exit, when the deposit is returned, Jerome deactivates the bracelets, and the time on the gadgets goes back.


... Chloe sighs, remembering all the richness of her feelings in such cinemas, and reflects that, despite all the risk of such entertainment, she is not ready to give it up yet.

Dexterous businessmen, who have a fat on underground cinemas of virtual reality, assured that the maximum error in time on the clock of clients after rebooting at the exit from the cinema can be no more than two days ...

Well, in general, it was not such a big problem - to return at the right time, provided that the client subscribed to a special program that equalizes the timer readings - by the way, incredibly expensive one, as if hinting by its high cost about the forbiddenness of pleasures when traveling in time and space on the waves of filmmakers' fantasy.


... Chloe knows: usually, when you need to leave the house quickly, at the very last moment something always happens - for example, something/ that you are going to put in the cosmetic bag, rolls into a far inaccessible corner, but something that you considered it unbreakable all your life, suddenly breaks - in a word, objects suddenly turn to you with their hostile side. But she still has a few minutes left before the estimated time of leaving home.


"You will need to go up to him and, as if by chance, get to know him ... Well, exactly the way you can perfectly," was written in a message from Peter. "First you need to walk a few hundred meters next to him and understand where he is going, and you will receive all other instructions from me through the transmitter."


So Chloe has to get to the stylish hall of the auction where the champagne is served - it seems she was there once ... It sounds really funny - the auction ... One terribly smart friend told her once that in the past there were some hand-made things and others artifacts for which some modern cranks are ready to shell out a lot of money.


But it is not for nothing that it is generally accepted that women have developed intuition: suddenly Chloe felt a certain feeling of discomfort - some vague suspicion suddenly loomed somewhere in her subconscious ... She remembered that only yesterday, leaving the cinema on an overabundance of emotions in her legs, she, as usual, just rebooted the time on the tablet, and then ... Yes, exactly like that: in a heap of annoying ads, she ignored the message that the subscription to the time aligner ended yesterday - she sometimes missed such notifications, believing that he will always have time to pay for the subscription later.


Chloe hesitated standing in the doorway. She could not figure out what date it was today, and whether the timer was on her tablet worked correctly ... In other words, she was not quite sure if a message came to her from Peter yesterday, today, or if it even would appear in her Inbox only tomorrow.


***

- This city immediately recognized me, and I recognized it in turn ... Something inexplicable happened during our interaction, when the bus was taking us here ...

- Perhaps these words can start a small novel.

- Are you kidding me? And why small one, by the way? .. I just wanted to say that at the entrance to the city, when all these low houses began, all these vegetable gardens and bird-embroidered curtains visible from the windows, the city seemed to nod to me, like to an old acquaintance.

Mokrunov was sitting in the bus behind the men who were talking and listening involuntarily to the conversation. He already knew so much about the city, he already had so many associations in his brain that all this talk about embroidered curtains resonated in his head very actively.


- Where did we get in with you, your mind like a sieve? Were chatting all the time, and left for the wrong place ... Well, okay, it's even better, since we managed to talk about everything.

- Yes, the main thing is that in the end we still got to the Panki station.

- And where is the accent? PAnki or PankI?

- Punks, to look like guys with such a ruffled hair.

- Oh, I also remembered, by the way: "At the Panki station there is a house with a pipe, Lesbians live at the Panki station, They believe that I am gay, I go to the Panki station for drinking".1


1 - Here the words of the song "At Panki Station" are quoted.