Binary code Mystery number three
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– Then let our meeting be declared concluded. May sanity protect us," Jarovitovich announced.
The attendees stood up as if on cue, and each headed for a separate exit.
Chapter 5: Brain-to-brain interface
After the collegium, the Zero Center was busy nominating a new Russian president. The plan was for the incumbent to resign early, hoping to win the election. But the head of a Duma party, known for his harsh and loud statements, unexpectedly wins. After his election, the first thing he did was to demand that the NATO bloc countries withdraw their armed formations from the former Soviet republics. Next – to extradite, return to Russia "all fugitives, thieves and robbers of our country". In addition to other non-business rhetoric, he threatens, if they ignore his demands, to "give them a little fireworks show," and "if that doesn't change their minds," he threatens to "wash their dirty souls with ocean water." Those to whom this was addressed maintained a cold-blooded silence, except for a few derisive remarks.
Everything went according to plan, and in early December, two Russian Project 941 Akula heavy strategic missile submarine cruisers went into the Atlantic Ocean. Usually, the citizen media sings odes to what a magnificent military we have, in particular – silent boats that supposedly pop up unnoticed off the coast of America, sometimes even in the bays of the United States. The same can be said about the media of NATO countries. In reality – everything is perfectly bugged and watched even from space.
One method of tracking conditions under and above water is hydroacoustic locators. Currently, the U.S. Navy's hydroacoustic locators operate in various areas of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as in the area of the Strait of Gibraltar and near Cape Nord off the coast of Norway. All of its components and surface vessels equipped with the SUR-TASS special tracking system are integrated into a single underwater tracking system. Hydroacoustic data from the receiving stations and regional assessment centers are fed to the Atlantic, Pacific and European Fleet CPs, to the Navy's Maritime Tracking Information Center in Suitland, Maryland, and to the U.S. military's central command structures.
Accordingly, the appearance of our boats off the U.S. coast was not a surprise to anyone; they were already expected. The situation was artificially agitated, the show went on as usual, but to make everyone believe that his intentions were serious, the new Russian president made an official statement at a press conference for Russian and foreign journalists. He said in his usual sharp and aggressive manner that if his demands were not met, if NATO troops did not move away from Russia's borders, he would give orders – first to launch and detonate a missile at high altitude, and then – to organize the explosion of missiles directly in the boat, simultaneously all of them, having previously evacuated the crew. "I hope you can imagine the consequences, if your brain hasn't completely atrophied yet," he said at the end of his speech.
Of course, everyone understood perfectly well that an explosion of such power would lead to global consequences. They even predicted the shift of the continental plate with the appearance of giant tsunamis, the height and power of which no one could accurately determine. And, of course, everyone predicted the explosion of the Yellowstone caldera with a description of the consequences that could not be compared with all apocalyptic scenarios put together; although there were some who predicted an "ordinary" tsunami with casualties and destruction comparable to the consequences of the hurricane in New Orleans, only in all directions of the impact force.
One way or another, the world did not know that no one was going to blow up, but that the goal was an excuse for another redistribution of the world, this time financial. Naturally, no one wanted to blackmail the "Russian bear," as Russia was often called abroad. And so, on the very eve of the New Year, "unexpectedly" for everyone, this very "Russian bear" makes an official statement that it intends to make a warning aerial detonation of nuclear warheads and informs about the danger of electromagnetic pulse, first of all, the airlines. This, of course, was met with multiple notes of protest, but mostly NATO politicians and militaries showed calmness and equanimity, although the public was "buzzing", especially on social networks.
Rutra began to suspect that the calmness of the politicians and military was due to a leak from Echelon 2, but he was assured that "everything was real," although it was clear that if Echelon 2 was not "making waves," Echelon 1 and the other levels were not worried, doing everything according to instructions. To make his intentions more convincing, the President ordered the submarine cruisers to surface. After the surfacing off the U.S. coast, which came as a shock to the public, as the public was reassured by the daily propaganda that this could not happen, "the Russians want to take a fright" – opinions changed radically. A brigade of anonymous hackers showed the world a supposedly intercepted secret report from the Institute of Physics of the Earth to the Russian president on the likely consequences of detonating the entire nuclear warheads of these submarine cruisers. This had the effect of an exploding bomb followed by a domino effect. Demonstrations, rallies and protests outside the Russian embassy, which had been going on since the beginning of the Russian president's threatening attacks on Western countries, stopped. People ran: some to buy everything, others to sell what they had.
The first to collapse was the stock market, its work was halted, followed by the rest of the trading floors, and a chain reaction went on all over the world. The next morning no stock exchange opened, and by lunchtime banks were closing. Discontent turned into riots and pogroms.
On his way to work, Rutra was particularly emotional about one scene. A crowd was rushing into a hypermarket, at the entrance of which a stately citizen, arms outstretched to the sides, was shouting: "I bought this center, I bought everything here, nothing is for sale." The crowd was pushing against the guards, who stood in front of him in two rows, heavily armed. He shouted to the guards, "Shoot, they will kill us all." The guards did not dare to shoot at people, they only fired warning shots in the air.
Another group drew attention to itself in this pandemonium. A man in civilian clothes, who was leading the group, shouted through the crowd: "This center is occupied by me, get out of here"; he ordered his "own" to "shoot in case of disobedience." A scuffle started between these groups of fighters, which caused the main crowd to disperse, and afterwards – they pounced, crushed, trampled on "their own" and "strangers", and started robbing the shopping center.
Two of Rutra's guards, this time FSO men who guarded him as head of the Special Affairs Division of the Presidential Administration, looked questioningly, waiting for a command. Rutra ordered to move forward, which was becoming increasingly difficult to do, even with the special signal, because of the traffic jams, "reckless" drivers, and special vehicles with flashers and sirens going in different directions.
Rutra got to the center by sidewalks, courtyards, and oncoming traffic. The soldiers remained guarding the entrance to the first building of the Institute of Statistics; they were not supposed to know the rest of the story. Rutra went down to the center and was told that he had to perform an urgent task, namely, to consider the possible consequences of actually detonating the entire ammunition of both submarines at maximum depth. Rutra was alarmed by this. First, because of the urgency, second, because the matter had not been considered before, but most of all because it had to be considered at all.