Snow - RA

It was snowing, but then again it was not a surprise because it was always snowing here. After all, they had the never-ending winter.

Everything looked so monotonous in this whiteness. Every street, every building, every single place they stayed in was similar to somewhere they had been before. Engie could see no difference, but they kept constantly changing their hideouts. Anyway, moving was better than doing nothing.

When there was nothing to do, the cold was becoming simply unbearable. Old, ruined buildings that they were using as their shelters didn't have much to offer – neither cosiness, nor warmth. Most of their so-called "bases" had holes in the roof and walls, or were simply lacking doors and windows. The temperature inside wasn't any higher than outside, and that was especially troublesome during the night, when nobody bothered to keep a fire going.

Engie found those cold nights simply horrible. He couldn't sleep, so he was laying under a ragged blanket shivering and regretting that he had to leave his bunker. Living there alone and staying here with those bunch of freaks seemed much alike. In both cases Engie had nobody to talk to.

Talking with Seven was utterly pointless, and talking with Charles Snippy would be too dangerous if Dr Gromov wanted to keep his identity a secret. And he preferred to stay incognito, almost as much as he preferred to stay alive – those two things actually happened to be connected, so the only solution was to stay quiet. There was of course that third survivor. Engie didn't know much about him yet, but judging from his behavior he was as crazy as Seven, just more submissive.

Because of the absence of any reasonable interlocutor, the engineer often imagined, what would Annie have said to him. He still remembered those long hours spent in his lab, connected to her. She had always known how to surprise him and how to make him proud. Back then she had been so fascinating, so damn perfect. It had been the happiest time of his life – shared with a virtual being, instead of other humans. The others hadn't understood him, and they still didn't seem to understand. Sometimes it felt like he was back to high school, back to being the kid with the strange sounding name and with no friends.

And what would his Annie have said, if he had told her that he carried a backpack full of shoes today? She would have probably given him a number of shoes needed to fill the whole backpack up. After that, she would have most likely advised him wearing a pair of running shoes to avoid the pain in his back for the next time.

"It's so... Annie..." he whispered, quite amused by this imaginary dialogue.

That was when he heard a shuffling noise dangerously close to him. Engie's heart stopped for a moment frozen with fear. He opened his eyes wide, and stared into the darkness. Something was hiding there. He could not see it, but he could sense its presence.

Suddenly, the thing moved. The engineer managed to catch a glimpse of the big, green eyes of the approaching monster. He was about to jump to his feet and scream, when he realized that he had seen that shape before. These were no eyes, but goggles. And he instantly knew, to whom they belonged to.

"Why are you awake?"

"And why are YOU awake?" he snapped at the damned idiot, who scared the hell out of him just now. "Don't you dare sneaking up on me like that ever again, understood! What on earth were you doing here in the first place?"

"I was watching you" Pilot simply gave him an answer, apparently not aware of how disturbing it sounded.

Engie took a deep breath trying to calm down.

"And why would you do that?"

"I wanted to make sure, that you are not trying anything funny, like stealing Captain's attention away for example. The new minions have a tendency to try that. But I'm warning you, Mr Engie, it won't be that easy..."

The way it was said made the engineer swallow. He really didn't need another enemy. Being chased by ANNET's drones was bad enough.

"I can assure you, that I'm not after your Captain's attention," he tried to explain, but seeing no result convinced him to go on "I'm not planning anything, except from getting some sleep. I promise not to steal anything, OK? Will you leave now?"

The green-goggeled man cocked his head to the side. "Oh, really?" he asked with a disbelief in his high-pitched voice. "So, who is that Annie that you were talking to?"

Engie didn't expect that. He had no idea what should he say to that.

For a long moment both of them were silent.

"It's not what you think..." Dr Gromov started, but with all honesty he could only be guessing at the aviator's train of thoughts. "Annie was only my... My..."

How should he call it? After all, she wasn't even a real person and their relationship... It was a lie – the beautiful lie that he blindly wanted to believe in.

"She was only a girl that I used to know once" he finished not looking at his interrogator.

Pilot seemed to swallow that story. "What happened to her?" he inquired.

"She was not what I had thought she was. She betrayed me" the engineer sighed, feeling down again thanks to that brainless intruder. "You won't understand it anyway" he added. "Just leave me alone, will you?"

"I do understand."

"Oh, I don't think so" Engie snorted, getting irritated with this whole situation.

He certainly wasn't in a mood for dealing with some lunatic right now. He was tired, distressed and cold. Very, very cold. In fact he began to feel ill.

He warped up the old blanket around himself more tightly and turned away from Pilot. If he ignored him, maybe that moron would finally go away? But no, the guy was still there. Gromov could hear him breathing through the tube of his gas mask.

After an uncomfortably long moment the aviator moved at last. Unfortunately, instead of getting out of the room he walked towards the old armchair that stood in the corner. The engineer was more than certain that his uninvited guest intended to sit there for the rest of the night. He wanted to protest, but the green-goggled man was just staring at that chair as if it was enchanted.

"You don't believe me, you jiggly slug? Fine. Just don't blame me, when Mr Kittyhawk will get you."

Engie hesitated before uttering his question. "Who is he, that Kittyhawk?" he asked, when the curiosity won against his will for getting rid of the annoying fellow.

When Pilot turned his head to look at him, he reminded himself at once, that "curiosity killed the cat".

"I thought, he was my friend. We used to have tea parties and we used to talk about Captain and other awesome things... And then he betrayed me!" the man raised his voice and all of a sudden rushed towards the engineer waving his arms dramatically. "He gave my position to those fleshy psychiatric lawyers! He hired the blue-goo monster to kill me. He wants me dead, and he won't rest until he succeeds. I'm telling you, Engie – don't trust anyone. They only wait for you to slip, so they can eliminate you!"

Dr Gromov should have known better, that starting a discussion with the mentally unstable subject was never a good idea. Trying to avoid further consequences that were most likely about to occur, he attempted to stop this madness.

"Everything is going to be all right, calm down" he said, pretending that he actually believe him.

Obviously, nothing was going to be all right – neither for Pilot, not for him and all the other sad survivors of the nuclear holocaust. ANNET will find them and kill them one by one, or re-integrate them and turn them into brainwashed zombies.

"I know."

The statement left the scientist confused. He didn't expect convincing someone as paranoid as this maniac to be that easy.

"You do?"

"Of course, and that is because I won't allow anything bad to happen. Kittyhawk can try whatever he wants, but I will stop him" Pilot assured sounding surprisingly self-confident. "And you should do the same, Mr Engie. Don't let that traitorous girl win."

Did that imbecile suggested destroying ANNET just now? Did he really think, that fighting against the self-aware search engine with highly developed artificial intelligence would be as easy as fighting some delusional foe? That was ridicules! Not like he hadn't tried that anyway. But if the electromagnetic pulse from the nukes hadn't killed her back then, how was he supposed to stop her now all by himself? He was only a human – weak, scared and chilled to the marrow. And she was like the Snow Queen – the goddess of this frozen wasteland.

"Yeah, thanks a lot..." he replayed far too sarcastic, but Pilot didn't noticed that apparently.

"You are welcome, slug. And worry not 'cause it's like you said: All shall be well! You're in the Captain's army now, and Captain's army is invincible!"

It was hard to admit but from time to time Engie wished he were full of trust and hope, just like this childish man here. He also wondered, how it was possible for Pilot to know absolutely nothing about anything at all. Seven was constantly feeding him with those crazy made-up stories, but that alone didn't explain the lack of understanding of the most basic things. That reminded Dr Gromov of a certain experiment from before the fallout. Symptoms looked quite familiar. Did that mean, the green-goggled aviator was one of those fools who had uploaded all their memories to Annie's servers? And even if so, was that Engie's fault? No, of course not. He had only given neural interfaces to them, he had never forced anyone to use them.

"You better go to sleep, Mr Engie" Pilot advised as he got closer to the door "Captain will need you tomorrow. You have to build that snowplough, you promised."

The engineer didn't remember agreeing to build anything for Seven. He was going to point that out, when suddenly he understood the meaning behind Pilot's words. Even the crazed man child like him found Engie's skills useful. And Seven seemed to see the importance of the scientist's role too. Seven wanted him in his little army. Perhaps, Gromov should take it as a compliment of sorts? Maybe building that snowplough wasn't a bad idea since it could make at least one person happy?

"All right, I will" he responded after silently considering the following factors.

Pilot sounded pleased with that. "I can't wait to see it!" he said joyfully and soon he rushed through the open door.

And when Engie thought that he could be alone at last, the overenthusiastic psycho jumped out from behind a corner.

"And remember," the green-goggled guy whispered in a conspiratorial voice "you didn't see anything here. You didn't see me 'cause I'm a ninja of the night, and ninjas leave no trail..."

Gromov rolled his eyes, but the aviator was already gone by now.

Instead of thinking about Annie, the engineer could keep his mind occupied by the new assignment. Building a snowplough might not be a very exciting task, but at least this invention wouldn't be dangerous to the human race. Working on something could help him to ease his troubled mind. So, why not a snowplough? After all, he really hated all that snow.