Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

4. The Citadel of Knowledge

July 2018, Moscow, Russia

***

Volya should have left for Moscow a day or two earlier, but he cut it too close, and now he was running late. He had overslept.

Jetlag played a role, but also the fact that he had to climb out of the window in the middle of the night, scale the wall to the hotel's roof and howl for a while. The perpetual noise of the big city more or less dampened his vocalizations, but a dog burst into yapping. Luckily, he had enough control of his werewolf to shrug, climb back down and curl in the gigantic tub pre-filled with the ice-cold water. After the worst of the bends were done, he slept like a baby. A human baby.

But, yes, he had overslept, went through the alarm-clock comedy routine, so Damir was in the middle of his presentation by the time Volya snuck into the University.

The building was empty and echoing in the summer, with the student body gone off to the field schools or on the summer break. The lecture theater was unexpectedly crowded after the deserted hallways.

Volya scratched his head. With all the love to Damir, his thesis' title was so long and boring that even he had stopped reading the mid-second line. But, apparently, three dozen staff along with the younger crowd, chose the new outlook on PIE thinggie over their dachas.

"The final simulations," Damir was saying, as Volya crept along the farthest row in the lecture hall to find a seat, "are at least 87% accurate."

Volya's steps were inaudible to a human ear, but Damir's gaze still swept over him. A relieved smile that curled the puckered corner of the guy's mouth didn't last long however.

A man with salt-and-pepper temples stood up. He pinched his well groomed beard, awaiting for complete silence. When he got it, he said, "Respectfully, Damir, I had a chance to review your algorithms. It's quite... aggressive in its predictions."

Volya had never met the speaker, but the woman in the navy-blue suit sitting next to him was Marina. Her head was back to Volya, but her brown hair was upswept into a bun, so her stiffening neck introduced the guy just fine. Meet Dr. Nesterov, the head of the ancient languages department. Also, Marina's husband.

Heads turned to Nesterov. Volya didn't bother with taking a seat. He just froze where he stood.

"When we look at a dissertation that straddles two or more fields of knowledge, there is always a buzz of excitement," Nesterov continued reasonably. The metal wireframes of his glasses glinted. "A temptation, even, to dig into the field that's fresh to you. So, my esteemed colleagues, I'll restrain my impulse to regale you with my thoughts on genetic fingerprinting!"

Light, appreciative laughter rippled across the auditorium. Looking from Nesterov's trim figure to Damir, Volya gritted his teeth. His many shopping expeditions with Liam opened his eyes to things that had never come across his radar before. Like Damir should never dress in cheap suits off the rack. They make him look like a grizzly in a tutu. Nesterov, on the other hand, was ye average-built guy, on the thinner side, on whom everything looked good.

Damir's face pinched, while Nesterov's all but beamed, he was so much in his element. "If we are talking about temptations, then there is one particular to our times. We are seduced by the AI. Feed it a bit of data, push the button and get nice-looking results. Promising even, believable... yet fictitious. It's amazing how many gaps can be plastered over by the adventurous models."

Sage nods replaced most of the smiles in the audience. But Nesterov permitted himself a small chuckle. "Among the fantasists and video games' designers, these kinds of reconstructions would be very, very valuable. But for the purpose of a serious scientific discourse..." Nesterov opened his arms wide to the sides. "In short, in my view, this has more in common with Tolkien's Quenya than with PIE."