— alcohol should be dosed with coupons, and violations lead only to death.
— With memories like that, I wouldn't be thirsty. — Natalie moved the glass away from her, but didn't put it back on the table.
— But I don't think you're going to be able to taste what I just made anytime soon. It's very mild, just a little stupefying. — Morgan himself took a little taste and showed me how to taste it with his tongue. It was very infectious.
Natalie took a small sip, and the initially icy liquid began to warm inside after a couple seconds — he was right. It was a very mild flavor indeed, and just relaxing. She'd always thought whiskey was very tart and more of a man's drink.
— And how often do you stir such things? — the girl asked.
— Not really… When I see that the conversation is difficult to get into.
— So you think we're having a difficult conversation? I thought you were gonna tell me about Tosca? Or am I? Was I wrong?
— You can… After all, there are no witnesses here. And there's something I can tell you that doesn't violate any secrecy in any case… The cells there are really all as they are described: a sink, a toilet and a bed. And they're kept there most of the time. But, firstly, from there they take you out for a walk in a separate room — there are no windows, but there is a glass-covered ceiling, through which you can watch the starry sky, like in our dining room, only smaller. Secondly, it is not quite dreary there, because they turn on the radio in the morning when you get up, in the afternoon and in the evening before you go to sleep. And, finally, thirdly, those who don't go out of there don't really continue to sit there either… This, of course, can already be called a secret, but if you tell anyone, they won't believe you anyway. Although I don't think you'd want to tell anyone.
— Do they execute them? Decide they aren't needed and just execute them? — Natalie was surprised by that. What could you do to get executed? It's all right there, you broke the rules, you blabbed something. Yeah, it's punishable by loss of contact with everyone else. But to be executed… There's only 7,000 of us here, not like billions of people before. How can anyone else be executed in this situation?
— Are you sure you want to know the answer to that? Especially since, if executed, how? — Morgan sipped from his glass and looked out at the horizon, where he could see the hollows, the rises, the cliffs against the marvelous starry sky. It was gray, of course, but it was still very romantic.
— The only thing I'm sure of right now is that I'm going to be upset…" Natalie thought her mood was blowing away. That had once been a good expression. Now it could only be blown away by a fan, which meant it wouldn't happen by accident. Why did she start asking him about Tosca? It was understandable that secrets and all that only added to the intimacy, but who knew that he was aware of these details. And he started telling her. And just a few minutes ago, things were so much better.
— In our position, you can't be too upset. — he turned back to her. — We're the few who woke up as children, not adults. Everyone else was an adult, or grew up with their parents when they were born here… And we must have grown up once, then fallen asleep, then woke up and started growing up again….
— What do you mean? I thought you were… About forty years old " Natalie looked at him in
surprise: his face seemed even more handsome now than before, his brown eyes more intelligent than before, and his appearance more predatory than before. He would be like a hunter looking out for his prey. It was both frightening and enticing at the same time. For a moment, the thought arose that even if he wanted to eat her now, he would have to give himself up to it willingly….
— No, Natalie. I'm thirty-three, and I'm only a year older than you… We even had lessons together when we were still in school… If you remember, I came up to you one day and asked if you had algebra lessons. You didn't have any with you, so you told me to come back another time. But I never did, because I thought it was you who didn't want to talk to me.
She remembered that moment in a flash. She had liked him a lot then, but she didn't even know his name. He had seemed very intelligent and quiet. In some ways even too modest, which, in her opinion, made it impossible for him to get to know her better. And she was already so excited then about his question about algebra, which she didn't have with her. That day she didn't take anything else with her except a physics notebook out of spite for the teachers, although she had algebra that day. After that incident, she carried her algebra notes with her every day, whatever she had. But that boy never showed up again, and a week later another boy met her, and she decided that was it. After all this time, of course, it didn't look the same as it had then. She worried and thought about it, and in the end she still met the one she wanted to meet.
— Wow," Natalie replied and laughed. — I really didn't have it that day. And then I carried all my algebra lessons with me, hoping that you would come again… So what do I do now? I don't have algebra with me again.
Morgan smirked. Apparently, he, too, was amused by the fact that their fates had come together in the end. Perhaps even more interestingly than before.
— I think we can do without her…" He moved closer to her and stopped just a few centimeters from her lips. — If you don't mind, of course…
She didn't mind… He kissed tenderly and, carefully putting her glass on the table, began to embrace her. Hugging and stroking, first around her waist, then her hips and then her waist and finally her breasts. She felt as if her nipples were about to burn through her overalls… And when his hand circled the back of her head and then squeezed her hair a little, her groin clenched as well.
Apparently he knew well how to drive a woman to frenzy….
The phone rang. The emergency phone that everyone had in their apartment. It wasn't supposed to ring at all during off hours, but there were times when the safety of the entire plant was at stake, which meant that the more a person decided, the more often he or she might have something like this ringing. One could only hope that there was only a question there, and not an indication that something had happened to the nuclear reactor.
Morgan immediately opened his arms and ran to the tube located in the front door:
— Morgan. I'm listening.
It didn't show on his face that this was something important, urgent, something you couldn't go on living without, or anything else imaginable. He just stood there and listened to what was being said on the other side. With a glassy stare that held nothing. It was beginning to frighten him.
— I'll be right there. — He summarized and hung up the phone, then turned to Natalie. — We're gonna have to go. We have a suicide in the lab.
***
Natalie had never seen dead people before, and she couldn't even imagine the picture she had seen in the lab. It was next door to the room where, a few hours ago, she and Morgan had been studying the blueprints for the new fusion plant. And she didn't even want to think that maybe this death was already there. It was so close.