The Steel Hounds

  Vladimir Vasilenko

  The Steel Hounds

  Translated by Olga Cotey

  Copyright © 2017 LitHunters Ltd. (http://lithunters.com)

  All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase another copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Contents:

  Chapter 1. Challenge Accepted

  Chapter 2. Calibration

  Chapter 3. Golden Harbor

  Chapter 4. First Steps

  Chapter 5. Ascension

  Chapter 6. The Altar of the Black Turtle

  Chapter 7. The Steel Hounds

  Chapter 8. Bad Company

  Chapter 9. Goliath and the Seven Davids

  Chapter 10. The Veins

  Chapter 11. Trojan Mammoth

  Chapter 12. The Source

  Chapter 13. The Grove of Horse Thieves

  Chapter 14. The Misty Hall

  Chapter 15. The Severed Hand

  Chapter 16. A Heart-to-Heart.

  Chapter 17. Six Steps

  Chapter 18. Treasures of the Sea

  Chapter 19. Fortress of Dervishes

  Chapter 20. The Pearl Peacock

  Epilogue

  Book recommendations

  Chapter 1. Challenge Accepted

  My tongue is my worst enemy. It's so much fun to instigate people sometimes, though!

  The police officer leaned forward, and for a second, I thought that he was going to jump across the table at me and grab me by the throat. The other one—an elderly captain with a mustache—must have thought so as well. He stepped in and tried to pacify his partner with a pat on the shoulder.

  "Come on, Serge, cool off! Wanna go for a smoke?"

  Serge jerked his shoulder and leaned back in his chair—arms crossed over his chest, jaw muscles twitching. His stare was penetrating. He looked as if he hoped to incinerate me with his righteous indignation.

  I defiantly sniffed the air.

  "I think I can smell smoke. Check if it's your chair burning."

  "Pretty soon you'll burn yourself, jerk!" The policeman barked. "We'll see how it goes when you are in the detention center, with all the criminals. You might change your tune."

  I put on a frightened look and then busted out laughing. Poor Serge was almost foaming at the mouth. The captain, seeing that his partner was beginning to steam, managed to force him out of the room and took the chair across from me. Scrolling through some document on an old tablet with a scratched screen, he heaved a heavy sigh.

  This cop was much older, more experienced, and he couldn't care less about my wisecracks. Maybe he just doesn't get them.

  Nah. Don't hold your breath. Judging by his mug, he's a simpleton. Typical cop who went bald and got fat too early from constant lack of sleep and his fast food addiction. He seems to be an alky on top of that. How could he not become one with this job? He's got a funny mustache, which reminds me of a shoe brush. He should shave it off. No one wears it like that anymore. His look, though... Calm, tenacious, with a touch of leniency. This look makes people feel uncomfortable, as if they were a naughty puppy.

  There is always a good cop and a bad cop, and he, fortunately, happened to be the good one.

  "What's your deal? Why are you asking for trouble? You only make it difficult for both of us.”

  I sighed and lowered my eyes in remorse.

  "You were arrested in the act of the crime, you could say, right outside the building. There’s no way you can deny having been inside. You, idiot, posted a video from the CEO's reception room. In addition to that, you made an inappropriate drawing on the fish tank. With a permanent laser marker. Shame!"

  "You mean, on the fish?"

  "On you! Shame for your parents."

  “I am an orphan, Mr. Policeman,” I hunched over in my chair. "And unemployed. I don't have money for anything. My girlfriend broke up with me recently. My passion for drawing is the little thing that brightens my lame life. But does anyone care?"

  "Oh, enough of your tales!" The cop frowned. "Do you think we didn’t run a background check on you? You're not an orphan. Your parents live in a small town. They worry about you, sending you money every month, in all certainty that you are still enrolled in the law school they sent you to. But you didn't make it past the first semester at the university, and dropped out after failing the exams."

  "There. You know all about me. What else do you want to find out by interrogating me?"

  The captain thoughtfully drummed his fingers on the cheap plastic tabletop.

  "You know, the two eternal questions in such stories are 'How?' and ‘Why?’ You broke into Obsidian’s office in the middle of the night. The office is located in one of the top business centers of the city. Somehow you bypassed the security and all alarm systems. Somehow you even managed to get out of there. We could barely intercept you."

  "And you wouldn't have if I had not sprained my ankle."

  "That's true. You're shrewd, dang it. Anyway, we got you and now you'll have to answer for what you’ve done."

  "For what?" I shrugged my shoulders. “I didn't steal anything.”

  “You trespassed,” he retorted.

  “I had no intention of committing a crime,” I replied in the same tone with a malicious grin on my face. "I was just fooling around. A warning or fine—that's all it's worth. Why are you trying to scare me with a felon-filled cell?”

  He grinned too, and I didn't like this grin on him.

  "I see you're so smart. Well, yeah, yeah, you're a lawyer... half-assed lawyer, that is. Then you should have gone to your law school instead of messing around. Also, you shouldn't have ruined the glass on the fish tank, which costs more than my apartment. That can be considered quite an intent which falls under a specific section of the law. It's called vandalism. That's the first point."

  My face hardly showed anything—I’m not bad at bluffing. But the captain was well aware that he was pushing the right buttons.

  "From this follows the second point. Since we have collared you in the course of an offense, we can hold you here not for three hours, but for forty-eight. So your swaggering is in vain. Who knows what can happen during these two days."

  "Are you threatening me or what?"

  The Fanny Duster shook his head reproachfully.

  "You are an idiot. You got yourself in trouble, so stay put now. And try to patch things up. You could hand over your accomplices, for example."

  "What accomplices?"

  "There are no traces of hacking the electronic system. That means that either you have some tricky illegal software installed in the neurocomputer interface..."

  "Go ahead and check!" I sniffed dismissively.

  "... or, which is more likely, you are colluding with one of the local IT people responsible for security systems. Collusion means aggravating circumstances."

  "I had no accomplices, so don't try so hard! Well, let's say it was a break-in. Fine, let's say there was vandalism. You can't accuse me of anything else anyway."

  "We’ll see. As soon as we find out exactly how you got in there."

  He paused, glaring at me.

  My optimism was leaving me like air does a popped balloon. The corresponding sound would have been very fitting in this situation. Perhaps, it was due to the adrenaline rush hangover, or because of the pain in the sprained ankle. Perhaps, it just dawned on me that this time I really messed up.

  Who cares about a fine. These bastards can really keep me here for two days. Sure thing, they will tell my parents about everything. That'd be so bad. Laugh all you want. The great and terrible Mongoose does not want to upset his mommy.

  “It's plain and simple,” I surrendered. "One of the windows on the floor was open. In the restroom. It seems like their ventilation system is not working properly, and these ding-dongs often don't close the window at night. Besides, there is no alarm system on the windows. I guess, they're trying to save money."

  "Makes sense. It's on the ninth floor. Now don't you dare lie: there were no cables hanging from the roof. Unless you had an accomplice, who removed them?"

  I rolled my eyes.

  "Yes, there were no cables. And no accomplice. I climbed from the bottom, not from the roof. There is a blind spot on the pe
rimeter, so I made it up there unnoticed. Nice and easy after that. There are only sensors on the two lower and two upper floors. Plus the roof. Other than that, you can climb the rest of the facade all you want."

  "How are you going to climb it? Are you out of your mind?" The "good" cop began to slowly lose patience. "There is either glass or brick everywhere! No equipment was found with you..."

  I remained silent and just smiled.

  "Are you kidding me?" The cop's voice sounded gloomy.

  “Well, I'm not saying that winged unicorns brought me up there.”

  "That'd be more believable."

  I shrugged my shoulders. Then I calmly stood my ground through his probing look.

  The cop's jaw muscles twitched. Once again, he drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

  "Are you serious?" He asked, having exhausted his arsenal of dramatic effects.

  "Yep."

  "Without equipment? The bare walls?"

  "Well, I wouldn't say bare. There are ledges. Brackets for lighting. Roof and glass boarding. Most importantly, the facade is not even. There are all sorts of... architectural extravagances. For instance, some alcoves are vertical and very convenient. You push off from one pier, and just jump to the opposite."

  "And?"

  "And then push off again."

  I showed an ascending zigzag line in the air.

  "Without using any safety? To get to the ninth floor?" The cop squinted. "Just so you could draw a dick on the fish tank?"

  “What wouldn’t one do for the sake of art,” I shrugged.

  He opened his mouth to say something obviously unflattering, but suddenly he stopped himself: I heard something vibrate in his pocket. He pulled out a prehistoric smartphone—basically, a piece of plastic with a screen to poke fingers at. He must have not earned enough for an NCI—a neurocomputer interface, which is implanted directly into the temporal lobes of the brain. He could have also been one of those REACTIONARIES who prefered not to pop quantum processors into their brains. There were a lot of them, especially among the old farts.

  "Yeah... Yeah. What do you mean? Are they all out of their mi... Okay, I get it... Yeah, yeah, I get it!"

  He looked at me angrily and, without saying a word, got up and walked to the door. He half-opened the door, but then though about something for a second, and slammed it shut. He walked back and hunched over me, putting his hands on the table.

  "You got lucky this time. Just remember, if you don’t stop your foolish tricks, they'll backfire. Trust me on that. I'm just giving you advice. Cut it out!"

  “Yes, mommy,” I played compliance. "Anyway, what just happened?"

  The captain gritted his teeth but restrained himself.

  “Some dude from Obsidian barged in. He made a statement that the company will not press any charges against you."

  Geez! The wrinkled ball of my optimism inflated again, swelling with joy.

  “Don't get too excited,” the captain cooled me off. "He wants to have a talk with you. He'll be here any minute. Can you tell me something? Off the record. I'm just curious."

  He leaned in even closer and the scents of tobacco and cheap cologne hit my nose.

  "Why the hell would you . . .?" He whispered covertly.

  I just smiled.

  "Plain and simple, captain. It's a challenge," we heard a man’s voice from the back.

  The cop frowned and turned around.

  "Huh?”

  The man who entered the interrogation room could easily play James Bond. He was wearing an impeccable and very expensive suit, which emphasized his posture and athletic body. Everything—his eyes, tone of voice, and posture—channeled confidence and strength. But his power wasn't rough and brutal, like some meatheads have it. Instead, he projected calm, dormant power.

  Master of life, damn him. For some reason, people like him annoy me terribly. I pulled myself together. Enough, Stan. Be patient. You've been walking on edge all day today.

  "It's just a hot thing for young people nowadays," explained the guest, coming up to the table. Without a hint or a gesture from the man, the captain obediently pulled away, letting him pass. "Organizers announce a certain challenge in closed community groups in social media. They raise prize money. The bids rise, and whoever completes the challenge first, breaks the bank. However, the tasks are complicated. And often dangerous. Or indecent."

  "Or illegal?" The captain budged in.

  James Bond nodded.

  "Sometimes all of those."

  "Yes, I've heard something like that. Some people just have nothing better to do. All they want is to play games. Like a reality show: what will you do for the money? Young people fall for it."

  "What can you do? That's how they entertain themselves these days."

  "Not the safest ways for entertainment. A month and a half ago, one of these fools was found on the subway rails—it also seemed he was trying to complete some challenge."

  "Yes, you are right. That's a very disturbing trend. By the way, breaking into a private office is also a bad idea. Our security service is armed, in case you didn’t know."

  "Why don't you file charges?" The captain shook his head in my direction.

  The dude from Obsidian shrugged.

  "Management orders. We will take action, though. Can I talk to the detainee? Not for long."

  “Yes, of course,” grunted the cop and left, finally slamming the door.

  After he left, there was a long pause. Mr. GQ pulled up a chair but didn't sit down—he just put his fingertips on its back, standing there and looking at me with condescending interest.

  What is up with all of them? These silent, deep stares and pretentious looks are getting on my nerves. Big hat and no cattle. I just wanna go home. Besides, my leg hurts.

  "Well, what do you need?" I couldn't stand it anymore. "You already know everything: how and why. So what other questions do you have for me?"

  "I have no questions. I do have an offer, though."

  "Yes, I heard that. Thank you!"

  I’m sincere in this—he took a load off my back. But what’s next?

  "You’re welcome. I hope this will ensure you of our good intentions. To convince you even more . . ."

  He squinted his eyes a little to the side, looking at a menu that was visible only to him, being broadcast through an NCI in augmented reality mode. His fingers fluttered over invisible buttons for half a minute. Almost immediately, I heard a notification sound in my ears. I automatically looked at what was there, and my jaw dropped so low that it almost hit the table.

  A six-figure sum was transferred to my account. It was slightly more than a hundred thousand.

  Holy cow, that's the prize money for the challenge!

  "A promise is a promise, Stan," GQ smiled. "You accepted the challenge and successfully completed it. It's all fair."

  "So you set it up? Why? To see how good your security service is?"

  "Do not flatter yourself, Stan. Our security service is very good. We have everything under control. Our only mistake was that we were not going to let you out of the building, but we did. And certainly, we did not intend to involve the police in this matter."

  "Then why did you have to do that?"

  "Consider this... a test task."

  "For me?"

  "For anyone who would undertake it."

  "How many were there?"

  "Besides you, six more. Plus, about twenty people wandered around the office for the entire three days, contemplating their options. You surprised us. We have provided several loopholes to the control point. For example, you could’ve stayed in the building after closing, hidden somewhere, and found the “gaps” in the security routes. We also left blind spots in the video surveillance system on purpose. You could also try to make it through the ventilation system."

  "Yeah, I know, I know. It's kind of dirty in there, though. Besides, I'm claustrophobic."

  "Well, you did find your way. We honestly hadn't even considered that option. There aren't that many experts in extreme parkour. This sport isn't that popular. You, on the other hand, are a real talent. I checked your v-log. You're Mongoose, aren't you? In the videos, you are wearing a mask, but it's easy to figure it out."