(sci-fi story)

Breaking news

“Now you are listening to CMM news. Today, on February 14, 2020, in such European countries as Poland, Ukraine and Germany, many people witnessed a strange sky phenomenon with dozens of shining cigar looking spots skyrocketing fast in a strange and chaotic way. We invited Professor Dupinski, an expert in all extraterrestrial issues, to comment on this unusual sky phenomenon.”

“Good evening, I guess that our viewers should not be anxious, for it is a kind of cutting-edge salute fireworks developed by our creative Chinese engineers right on the eve of Saint Valentine`s Day! So using such amazing opportunity, I want to congratulate all hearts in love, all around the world, on this wonderful holiday of all amorous people!

“Thank you, Professor. Our second news is connected with weird and ubiquitous hum resembling bear roaring heard in a number of caves of the Tarta and Carpathian mountains …It was registered by speleologists of Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia from 7 am till 5 pm. How could you explain this unusual nature marvel?

“You see, as one wise man once said, “We should not seek a black cat in a black room, especially if there is a black mouse.” Professor Dubinski made a meaningful pause.

“You mean black cat, right?” The TV anchor clarified.

“No, I mean Mickey Mouse seeing pink elephants. The powerful bear roaring sounds could be just the sort of Scandinavian throat singing performed by some Swedish or Norwegian tourists celebrating the Saint Valentine`s Day deep in the caves of the Tarta and the Carpathians. The only thing left for me to do is to congratulate you again on this romantic day!”

“Thank you! That was our guest — Professor Dubinski.”

One week before

Kaia, a smart looking blonde woman with long loose hair, waving freely under the heavy blows of the Northern wind, came closer to a high granite rock covered with snowdrifts of sparkling snow. The young woman was dressed like a stylish ski-resort tourist in a fashionable white ski resort jacket, white pants, white boots and a white knitted hat topped with white go-go goggles.

After the thorough scrutinizing of all cracks and cusps of the steep rock, instinctively she stretched her hand to the outer pocket on her white backpack to take the smartphone. In a while, she sharply pulled her hand back, remembering the words of their three-hundred-years-old boss, Gudmund, “ No gadgets for the whole month!” She plunged into deep thoughts, “And how should I contact these…Nordic manly men? No buttons, no cameras, no icons, just nothing… ”

Once again, Kaia looked the rock around, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled with all the power of her well-trained lungs. Her father was right – good whistling is a good skill. She was noticed… Some slight shifting sprang up somewhere nearby. Her peripheral vision caught it. Though, while looking directly at the right rock, she saw nothing, her beautiful backbone hinted that it was a small camera.

The cheery and sportive woman smartened up a bit and put her wavy hair in order; right at her feet a big round hatch moved aside and clawed hands of Hulk looking Folke grabbed her under armpits and dragged her down.

“Hey, hey, hey! Bearded Bear! I know that you like to feel up all women who come into your sight, but this time you can make a mistake!” Kaia tried to free herself from the clutching hands of the hilarious man bringing her down through the crisscross corridor full of deadlocks going gradually towards a well lit hall.

At long last, Kaia jumped out of the hands of Folke and was joyfully hugged by Gustav, a big shoulder man with not less happy Viking`s smile illuminating all his war torn face covered with a well-trimmed mustache and a wavy beard.

“Oh! One more manly man appeared in the dark den! Don’t break my bones! I get a feeling that you have not seen any women for the whole year!” Kaia looked around the spacious hall, the stony walls of which were covered with huge plasma pc screens and ball-lighting blasters. To her surprise at the solemnly looking oak table, she saw aristocratic Agnetta in stylish silvery Scandiastyle jumpsuit and dudette looking Göta in somber military style tank suit, with high black boots and a khaki multilayered T-shirt. Both of them kept glasses with Blossa glogg and looked at Kaia with ironic smiles…

“Holla! Girls!” After a short slightly confusing pause, she added, “I see that I dropped by in a wrong moment and three blondes are too many for this modest mountain office of two lonely men, nevertheless…”

“We are always glad to see our Ice Queen from Nordtoppen, Kaia. Unfortunately, you ignored all our three last invitations, so…” Gustav invited her to take a seat with a wide hand gesture.

Kaia took off her white backpack, white ski jacket and approached a Bjork wooden chair refusing to take a seat. With a slight irritation she looked at Gustav, “Don’t you think that Göta in her early twenties is too young for your glogg parties?”

“We work over a too complicated project set by Gudmund a month ago and her biochemistry knowledge is what we need right here and right now,” Gustav could not hide his slightly visible smile.

“OK, I see,” Kaia put her annoyance aside and kept on, “In two hours I should set off to Gotland, the place of Göta`s residence, and she is supposed to be there, by the way,” Kaia made a pregnant pause and looked meaningfully into the eyes of grinning Göta.  “However, let’s get to the point.  Several events that happened two-three days ago forced our well-respected Gudmund to send me to all members of the Twelve-Member-Round-Table. He thinks that we are to be ready to a new clash with Snotty Snakes…”

“Snotty-Schnotty! Doesn’t he suffer from paranoia?” Folke interrupted Kaia. “We crashed all of them eight years ago. One thousand pinpoint blows and their burnt bones turned into a good fertilizer for all ocean bottoms and mountain feet…”

“Yeah, it was a glorious victory. We crashed them, surely, however, not all of them! Thirteen of our objects, including our headquarters copper cave, were mined just only two days ago. Our people found out the stones stuffed with nickel, sulphur, and nitrogen – that is their style. I would like to remind you that such explosives can crack multi-ton granite plates… Secondly, a week ago our high-speed bio-com network 10D was unexpectedly hacked up. Just only for ten seconds, nevertheless…Any leakage of information could lead to dramatic events. Don’t you remember the events that happened 200 or 70 years ago? Such unexpected break-in could be done just only by their specialists…Besides, we detected spotty spiral radio signals from Alpha Cen AB. It is in their style too, and though we failed to decrypt the whole message we caught the main idea – they plan to get support in the nearest future.”

Kaia got excited and bit her dainty upper lip, “Besides, Gudmund got the info that they ordered to close the biggest observatories around the world…”

“Still now they ORDER to do something? How brazen of them to hide in some dirty deep hole and to blow their cheeks out! Uhm…What for they did it?” Agnetta put her glogg glass aside and touched her earlobe in a deep reflection.

“Gudmund thinks that, on the one hand, they want to deliver several space strikes and, on the other hand, they expect the arrival of a large group of…supporters. Surely, in any case, they prefer to stay unnoticed,” Kaia stopped her passionate speech and took a seat.

“So, this time Gudmund decided not to invite all of us to his ‘well-mined’ headquarters cave and to determine what we think about all these scaly-snaky things using you as a special envoy, right? ” Gustav shrugged his big shoulders and looked in the celeste eyes of Kaia.

“Right.According to our estimates a dozen of Snotty Snakes or so survived. We failed to detect their exact locations eight years ago. Today, the situation is almost the same. Nothing changed. Though, there is one distinct difference. At that time we chased them, and now they track us down.”

Göta raised her hand, surprising all the team of her high rank colleagues. In contrast to Agnetta, Kaia, Folke and Gustav, she was too young and did not belong to the members of the Twelve-Member-Round-Table. However, Gustav gave her opportunity to speak out.

“A month ago, together with a team of our Nordic youngsters we arranged a series of underground races on small sized spheres. We chose European routes…To our surprise, while sliding through the Carpathian and Tatra tunnels, we noticed fresh 2 meter wide tubes, going vertically up and down, covered with thin layers of burnt clay. Their total number was not more than twenty…”

“Is it all?” Gustav scratched his nape and looked at Folke.

“Whipper-snappers! Who gave you the right to do such stupid things without the permission of the Round Table? ” Kaia was ready to get furious.

“Calm down, Ice Queen! Remember your own youth! Dressed like half-naked Freya and flying on a wooden wagon drawn by black cats, you played pranks with frightened students celebrating Midsummer fest at night!” Gustav approached Kaia and hugged her once again, “You were so amazingly adorable in your early twenties! Why did not you ask the permission of the Round Table at those magnificent nights?”

Kaia got blushed and almost silently sighed out, “Shut up, quisling…” In a while she came to and continued with a firm voice, “OK, let`s come back to our Smart Snakes. These tubes really look like the routes to their underground bunkers. How do you plan to smoke theses SS scoundrels out of them? This time their protection system will be much harder to crack. Their algorithmically megabyte brains have already calculated all possible attack and counterattack options.”

“Together with Folke we will drink a barrel of glogg and will stink them out of their dirty dens with our glorious Scandinavian throat singing, Eight years ago I hunted down one of these scaly scums, scooting from me like a flitter mouse with a burnt tail. I switched on my loudspeakers at full power with Scandinavian throat singing. The crackling clatter of this rumbling bear roaring forced that skidooing snotty shit to сoil like a dingle doody. Obviously, he could not stand it…The ancient Earth`s voice got right under his tail… I crashed his shivering cigar looking bolt bucket exactly over Kailash in the Transhimalaya region.”

“Gustav, Gustav, surely, I will convey all your words to Gudmund, without any comments,” Kaia waved her graceful head with a pinch of regret. “However, in my opinion, your hair got grey, but your proposals sound as frisky as in crazy youth… when you hit Sexträsk and Djupröven red.”

Having heard the ideas of Agnetta and Folke, which were more aimed at tactical details but not at strategic points, Kaia put on her white ski-jacket, white hat and white backpack, not permitting Folke and Gustav to touch her anymore. She left the comfy cave office of her colleagues where she suddenly felt so lonely. Under the stylish ski goggles, nobody saw her beautiful blue eyes covered with bitter tears – her crud-rude Gustav ditched her for Göta, this muddy mushroom nix from Gotlandwoods…