“And now we yell! All together! With feeling!” Makar ordered the girls. He himself did not begin to yell. He did not want to compete.

The girls shouted, waving their arms. Lara, whom Sashka was holding by her legs, finally leaned out of the window up to her waist and found herself by the open window on the side of a car unhurriedly passing them. Sashka was convinced that the driver did not see such girls often, but he did not even turn his head.

“Drove past like a robot! Could at least move a little!” Lara said with annoyance, when Sashka and Cyril pulled her back into the minibus.

“You’re too noisy for him. He likes quiet dames with slippers in their teeth!” Cyril butted in.

“Okay, gophers! Don’t want to notice in a friendly way, notice in a bad way!” Makar warned with a threat. Before anyone had time to understand what this “bad way” was, Makar had already rested a foot against the back of the seat and kicked it off. Sashka had never seen anyone stripped down a minibus with this composure.

Makar leaned out the window. The seat back hit the windshield of the Toyota moving in the adjacent lane and flew away to the curb. A crack appeared on the glass. The driver twisted the wheel. Sashka, very near, saw a puzzled fat face and trembling cheeks.

Sashka could not control himself. He leaned out, yelled, and waved the hanky torn from his neck. He was convinced that it would be impossible not to notice him. He could even describe the ballpoint pen sticking out of the stout person’s pocket. Someone pulled his sleeve. Pushed him down into a seat. Danny.

“Calm down! He doesn’t see us! And you calm down! Put the extinguisher back!” Danny took the fire extinguisher from Makar, who intended on finally finishing the Toyota with it.

“He even twitched!” Sashka said dejectedly.

“He twitched because he heard a bang!” explained Danny. “We don’t exist for him.”

“And those people who tried to stop the minibus at the stops? They were doing what, waving their hands at a void?” Sashka had his doubts.

“I suspect that they see the minibus itself. But us and what we throw, no!” Danny followed with his eyes the fire extinguisher, which the agitated hands of Makar nevertheless flung out of the minibus. “Sit down and place your paws on your knees!” he peacefully advised Makar.

“I understand why it’s route D minibus! D for devious!” Alice said suddenly.

Danny snorted with suspicion. It is rare to meet mystics taller than two metres. Otherworldly things usually do not stray into a head placed so high. This is a height of practical things. “Well, ‘devious’, so ‘devious’! Gentlemen! Let’s stop running and howling, and try to figure this out! Has anyone been on the route D minibus before?” Silence. “Then something must exist that ties all of us together. If we understand this, then let’s also understand why we’re gathered here. Let’s determine what we have in common.”

“Besides me, everyone here is a freak,” Alice muttered under her breath.

“Age,” Freda voted. “Who here is older than sixteen, raise your hand.”

Cyril immediately jerked up his hand. “You’re all small fry!!! I’m seventeen!” he stated.

“Cyril! Well-a show that pass again!” Lena asked softly.

“Certainly!” Cyril’s hand eagerly dived into one pocket, then another, and a third. The search was carried out with exceptional determination, but the pass did not appear. Lena waited mockingly.

Danny lost patience first. “Fine, age!” he nodded. “But age is too obvious. There are 300 thousands like us in Moscow.”

“Why so quick about Moscow? What if I’m not from Moscow? Who’s also not from Moscow?” Freda was offended. There turned out to be many “non-Muscovites.” Lena was even from Kiev.

“Fine. It means not only Moscow,” yielded Danny. “For that matter I’m from Novosibirsk. A year ago we dragged ourselves here and now we regularly feel sorry… Let’s think a bit more! Appearance, height, sports training, psych profile, gender sign, all different for us. Useless to search for similarities here.”

“Gender what?” Makar frowned. Sashka noticed that the term “psych profile” also seemed suspicious to him, but he did not risk asking about it.

“You’re a dude or a dame,” Rina explained from the last row. Makar squinted at her, checking if she was serious, and made an understanding face.

“Let’s analyze further. Any geniuses among us?” Danny continued to find out. Cyril again put up his hand.

“Cyril, precious! Lower your paw and continue to search for the pass!” Lena asked with southern softness in her voice.

“Any others besides Cyril,?” Besides Cyril and the modestly blushing Danny, there turned out to be no other candidates. Danny played with the crease on his forehead. “Of course, it would be tempting to acknowledge that if we’re not geniuses, then at least talented in our own way,” he with melancholy raised his eyes and immediately lowered them, “nevertheless I fear that this is the deciding factor here.”

“But wha did you look at me? You, beanpole!” Makar exploded.

“I didn’t look at you!”

“Did too! You eyeballed me and started to talk all sorts of nonsense! Are you hinting that I’m stupid?”

Sashka felt that the showdown could stretch on for a long time. Bad enough that they were travelling from Moscow at one-and-a-half kilometres a minute. “He didn’t look at you. He looked at me!” he said and caught Danny’s grateful glance.

“I looked at him,” confirmed Danny.

Forced to be satisfied with the answer, Makar made a disapproving sound into the broken window. “In sync? This long leader cramps and you bring him a stool? OK! Take care of yourself, guys!”

Freda was tired of filming. She lowered her hand with the phone. “Let’s take it from another side!” she stated. “How did we turn up in the route D minibus at all? Each specifically? Here, you?” she poked Lara.

It turned out Lara was going to try out as a model in a summer collection ad. “I was given a piece of paper in the subway! For screen tests!”

“Rush along on a piece of paper handed out at the subway… In the city, alone! Heavens!” Lena delivered tunefully.

“Do you want to say something?” Lara raised her eyebrows.

“I said, ‘Heavens!’”

The suited precisionist Vlad Ganich was on his way to collect a monitor and speakers from a guy who had phoned him last night. Vlad did not get who he was. Some friend of a friend.

“I immediately sensed that you’re a fan of freebies!” stated Makar. Vlad with indignation straightened his tie.

Cyril informed them that he found himself by chance in the route D minibus. He liked someone and, out of natural shyness, was too timid to approach the person on the street. However, when they asked him whom he liked precisely, Cyril began to beat around the bush. It was clear that he was choosing between a pie in the sky and a bird in the hand.

“Well, everything is clear with this… Will lie to the last! And what are you doing here? Hey you, boy!” Freda fearlessly poked Makar. Makar choked. The last time a female inspector had called him “boy” was in matters of minors.

By chance dropping his line of vision onto Makar’s wrist, Sashka saw three small round bluish scars on the outside of the palm. Clearly tracks of cigarette butts put out against the skin. “Who did this to you?” asked Sashka.

Makar looked at his hand. He clenched and unclenched his fist. The bluish burns were filled with blood and became violet. “None of your business!” he said sharply and, after hiding his hand behind his back, moved to the window.

“He did it himself,” Cyril whispered to Sashka.

“Why himself?”

“Side by side and regular. If it were someone else, he would fidget. Likely, he punished himself for something. Who knows!” Cyril said cautiously.

Freda herself was going to find out about the new humanities-theatrical college, which she by chance had heard about on the radio. Moreover, she had heard it in such a way that she understood neither the name nor the precise address, but only to get on the route D minibus from the Planernaya subway station. And on the whole, it turned out Freda flew into Moscow only the day before yesterday, settled at her coach’s former wife’s, and after a day and a half, had time to go around to seven institutes and three universities.

“On the whole, everything here is vague. Nothing in common,” Danny summed up.

The minibus kept going for a long time. Calm Kievan Lena even managed to snooze, moreover, of the two nearby shoulders, on Vlad Ganich’s. It was unrealistic to sleep on Cyril’s shoulder, because every three seconds he leaped up to meet someone. Vlad did not shake off Lena’s head, but it was noticeable that he was suffering and perceived her as a contaminated object threatening his suit.

Makar leaned out the window with distrust. “Just in case! Seems we’re driving up!” he reported.

***

The minibus slowed down. They had turned from the highway long ago. Monotonous concrete fences occasionally with graffiti stretched out. Reaching the end of the last one, Route D unwillingly rolled onto a broken unpaved road. To the right was a field. To the left was a colourful show of Moscow groves of different sizes, often small birches and maples covered with caps turning yellow and almost supported by nothing. The minibus went along slowly, swaying on the way. After about fifteen minutes, it stopped at some gates. The gates opened. They again set off, drove for about twenty metres, and finally stopped.

Sashka pulled the door and carefully got out. He took a step, expecting the elastic force to catch him and throw him back into the minibus. The bus was standing on an asphalt area surrounded by lilac bushes. Before them was an ordinary two-storey building. Two structures and a gallery connecting them. Low stairs, wide porch, and black double doors. Next to them was a blue doorplate, on which crawled cockroaches of indistinguishable letters.

“What’s written there? Can anyone see?” asked Sashka.

“It says HDive,” someone beside him answered. Sashka turned. Standing next to him was the person by the name of Rina, squinting in the sun.

“You can see the letters from here? What eyesight!”

“Well no, I can’t. I read them earlier,” she admitted with a sigh.

“How?”

“Well, on the whole, I came from here. I was ordered to meet, accompany, and explain nothing. That kind of thing,” Rina shrugged her shoulders slightly, and Sashka understood that she did not particularly like this task. Sashka belatedly realized that she sat more quietly than everybody in the minibus and did not panic.

“So it’s you who dragged us here? I’ll strangle you!” Makar began to yell and rushed at Rina.

Sashka caught him in a chokehold and discovered at the same time that everyone had already got out of the minibus. “Stop!” he ordered and asked Rina, “What next? Where are we going now?”

Rina looked first at the sun, and then at her phone, checking if the sun was slower than the clock on her phone. “Well, come on! They’re waiting for us!” she said and, having turned around, made her way to HDive. Exchanging glances, the rest followed her.

“Only not me! I’m not going!” Freda said and, after passing everyone, went first.

Alice stepped with pleasure on the heads of the yellow flowers shooting out between the flagstones. If somewhere there were no flowers, she specially made a zigzag in order to crush some flowers elsewhere. “If this decoy also counts, then ten of us,” she stated.

“Well, so wha?” Makar was puzzled.

“No wha!” Alice mimicked and tinkled the death dog tags with a challenge.

END OF AUGUST – BEGINNING OF SEPTEMBER