(sci-fi story)

The 2031 year was extremely hard for Alex Azimenko, a retired 85 year old scientist, a specialist in quantum physics. In his august senior age, he looked well-fit in comparison with his countryside friends living nearby in a small picturesque Ukrainian village hidden among numerous apple and plum gardens just 50 kilometers from Kyiv.

Former sportsman and healthy lifestyle activist, Alex Azimenko blent gradually in the placid rural life of his neighbors, taking care of his modest summer cottage garden, which took somewhere a half an acre, and kept on giving private lessons to those schoolchildren and University students who got deep interest in physics. One of his favorite quotations, he liked to remind to his disciples was the phrase of Ernest Rutherford, “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” And if somebody asked him about stamps, he switched immediately to his splendid collection of stamps, which he kept on collecting since his faraway secondary school years…

However, this year was extremely hard for the noble-looking scientist with a well-trimmed white beard, thin mustache and almost completely bold head. After successful overcoming of all coronavirus waves with its three most dangerous variants in the early 2020s, when the dense greenery of his own garden protected him better than all surgery masks and spraying deodorants taking together, the new virus, called solemnly as DIAMOND 13, forced him to turn his own summer cottage in a bunker, ready to withstand one-year long pandemic lockdown. Judging upon the mass media razzle-dazzle, this virus broke through the wide forest and garden zones paying no attention to phytoncides, volatile organic compounds, killing all viruses and bacteria around wild forest and domestic fruit trees.

Mass media spin doctors affirmed that it was three times more powerful than the last variant of corona viruses…Thousands of people have already died in the main cities of Ukraine…The side effects of those who survived were quite weird, people suffered from headaches, felt like being half dead, avoided any work to do, got the sporadic lack of oxygen, and tried to commit suicide in a state of frustration.

However, the voluntary one-year lockdown of Alex Azimenko has already finished. His body needed the Sun with its D-vitamin and active movement — 10,000 steps a day, as it was recommended by the well-respected BBC experts…

Alex has not left his house for the whole year…for the whole year he has done various fitness exercises to be alive and kicking…Nevertheless, some inner voice whispered to him deep at night – one more year in his summer house…bunker could be the last in his life… As for the virus DIAMOND 13 – it just became stronger and stronger giving no hints about its further retreat in the nearest future. The vaccine was promised but not earlier than a half a year period after.

‘Holy Crap! When will they cut their crap?’Alex was ready to crash the wooden table and stools made with his own hands, raising a heavy axe over his head… Looking out the window, he noticed a black raven falling dead from a newly built metallic tower. Alex put his axe on the table and plunged into deep reflections.

This cobweb looking spire for the so-called ‘experimental ultra-class communication equipment of the new generation’ was built somewhere one year ago not far from his house. It belonged to some newly fledged Ukrainian hi-tech company specializing in some blah-blah-blah communication equipment. Officially, it did not function but non-officially all ravens and doves landing on its peak fold wings and tumbled town as if they had been stroked with some sort of electroshock weapon…

Alex brew his own herb tea, lit fire in his chaste brick chimney and remembered one of his old colleagues, called Nick Nickolenko, who wrote a scandalous article about the possibility of cloning quantum copies of viruses somewhere in 2021 or 2022. The slanderous article was written by a specialist in quantum physics, however, it related to molecular biology…The scorcher was so sick that Nick was forced to quit all his scientific projects and to sink into oblivion leaving to traces to follow his further activity. Just a year ago Alex found out that Nick changed his name and surname and started working for some Ukrainian hi-tech company producing some blah-blah-blah communication equipment…Stop!

Alex took a bottle of deep dark amber cognac from his old-fashioned fridge and poured a glass of it… “Old chap, my well-aged crouching tiger,” Alex whispered and сhugged a big pitcher of his gnac, though he did it very seldom.

“Nick Nickolenko,” he pronounced slowly once again and took a seat to monitor the article of his old colleague in his middle-size tablet with high-velocity Internet. Finding nothing and cursing through his teeth, he took his mobile and called his 60-year-old son Peter, living not far from him. After 30 years of military service, Peter hardly could be called as a smart man; his slow speech irritated a bit all his companions without any exceptions. However, he had very good skills at fast getting any food products and construction materials for the most reasonable prices.

Peter came with a parcel of fresh food from the small shop wearing a respirator-looking mask and rubber gloves on his crab-shaped hands.

“Dad, you just surprise me, drinking cognac alone and not inviting even me, your only son who keeps bringing products in this disgustful Diamond virus time,” Peter put his parcel on the floor, washed his hands and sprayed some liquid on his gloomy-looking mask.

“I don`t drink it alone, son. I invited you to do it together and to discuss one puzzlingly puzzling puzzle,” Alex hugged his son and invited him with a gesture to the handmade table.

“Wow! Some puzzlingly puzzling puzzle! It sounds intriguing,” Peter took a glass of cognac and drank a half of it in one gulp.

“You are a former military, Peter, so I will be brief. All I need is to buy a number of electronic devices, checking high-frequency waves, which exceed 65, 000 hertz and several more electronic devices mentioned in this list,” Alex showed the screen of his tablet.

“Is it all?” Peter snapped a shot and looked at his peaky Dad.

“No, you are to bring your whiz-kid programmer son here, George, who ignores me for the whole month, to install some equipment on my roof, your roof and the roof of Semen, this stingy scrooge chap, living three houses on the right of me.”

“Should I keep my lips shut? Or I can shoot the breeze with my friends about your experiments?” Peter smiled with the corners of his eyes and drank the second half of cognac from his glass.

“The less you twitter, the longer you live, you know it from your military experience,” Alex joined Peter and added cognac to both glasses.

Three days after Peter and George crept on three roofs installing handmade FFR electronic devices on satellite aerials of Alex, Semen and Peter, forming a triangle aimed at the cobweb tower peeping intrusively into the windows of annoyed Alex.

All neighbors looking at these сlumsy-roof-climber-crawling were said that the new satellite aerial equipment was fixed adding a cutting-edge package of services. Nobody wanted to buy these hi-tech appliances because in the lockdown period any penny counts…

In the evening of the same day, the cobweb steeple was covered with a slight shadow of smoke and several sparrows proudly settled down under its state-of-art spiky top.

“I felt that it functioned, and it functioned, I caught it frequencies and they were too high,” Alex rubbed his hands with pleasure, drinking his tasty herb tea with his grandson and son.

“And how did you stop its functioning?” George, a rebel looking young man with a spiky fair-hair mane in his late twenties, put his eyeglasses in order.

“I always respected Tesla with his resonance experiments. I just imposed several frequencies on each other, and you noticed a tiny flame playing joyfully on the top of this unidentified evil structure…”

“Do you really think that this tower is connected with the DIAMOND 13 virus?” George bit his thin lip and brought the half-drunk bottle of well-aged cognac with three glasses on a wooden tray with spicy snacks.

Alex smiled and patted the shoulder of his grandchild, “I even did not notice as you turned into an adult man…Surely, I really think so. I have already told you about one of my colleagues Nick Nickolenko and his article about quantum copies of viruses. I don`t know how exactly it works but I think that high frequency emitting, in the range of 65,000 – 70, 000 hertz leads to oxygen hunger and appearance of the DIAMOND viruses holograms in the blood of people, creating real antibodies and all negative consequences connected with it.”

“You think that your Nick Nickolenko was a genius, right?” George poured cognac in three glasses on the table.

“No, I just want to stay alive as my father who died at the age of 100 years,” Alex took a glass of cognac and pronounced a toast, “Let`s drink to our health!”

After drinking cognac, Peter looked into the eyes of his old father, “Dad, and don`t you want to help other people living in our country?”

Alex squinted his eyes, “I have said so far that I want just to stay alive together with all my family members, friends and my hearty neighbors. I remember old saying, ‘If good journalism starts fighting with big business, the big business will always win.’ So, if you want to install my FFR devices of the roofs of your friends and acquaintances, you are welcome. But don`t gossip a lot…Three villages around us will be sufficient…”

“OK, Grandpa…By the way, how do you decipher your FFR abbreviation?”

“That`s very simple — ‘Freaky Farmer Resistance’…”

* * *

Three months later, the National Television Channel of Ukraine ‘1+2’ informed that the DIAMOND 13 virus took more and more lives of Ukrainians, showing no mercy to anyone, children and teenagers, adults and seniors, the poor and the rich. However, there was a hope that an effective vaccine would be tested soon and a month or two later all inhabitants of Ukraine would get a free access to it. The price would be moderate and accessible to all walks of life.

In the footage about curiosities, a ‘1+2’ female journalist said with a smile that to the surprise of numerous virus experts in three villages located not far from Kyiv none of the inhabitants suffered from the DIAMOND 13 virus infection. The majority of professionals came to conclusion that some anomaly zone was placed there and this region should be monitored additionally by specialists in other natural sciences.