Unlimited Plan (*)

KryptBoy in da crypt

11

Moscow, Russia

A jolt runs through Sergey Kagda's body. No sound comes from his throat as he exhales his final breath.

Around him, a myriad of ultra-modern computer equipment continues to pulse a pale light and a constant hum into the void and near-darkness of an abandoned warehouse. A mobile phone is locked in a wire cage affixed to a concrete pillar, preventing its use. The screen turns off on the last received text message. "Bye KryptBoy."

Sergey has just completed his best work as a cryptographer. He spent several days prisoner in this depot, with the bare essentials left by his captors: A simple neon lamp for lighting, a bucket for his natural needs, and a stock of dry food and bottles of Polustrovo water, drawn from the eponym region near Saint Petersburg.

His body slumped on the metal table leaned against the central pillar of the vast warehouse, Sergey, with his bristly gray hair, resembles a disarticulated puppet. One of his arms hangs limply, the other, arched above his head, has landed on one of the three keyboards that cover the shiny work surface.

On one of the screens, a sequence of "g" s scroll endlessly, seeking to conquer all the space available to them with a frenzied metronome rhythm.

The scraping of heavy chains is heard, amplified by the cold echo of the sheet metal construction. Thirty yards away, the sliding door opening adds its eerie creak to the ambient noise. The exterior glare is not enough to pierce the obscurity beyond a few feet. A halo from the neon bathes the table, highlighting a bright island amid a black sea. Two men enter the warehouse and cross the darkness to dock at the center. They begin to grab all the recording media containing the late Sergey Kagda's work, indifferent to the presence of his corpse. In a few minutes, they have recovered the external storage units and dismantled the internal disks. They leave, arms loaded with their digital loot, abandoning the deserted island with its body. The rest of the equipment, still warm, emits a sharp smell of copper and ozone.

Outside, they place the fruits of their raid in the trunk of a luxurious metallic gray urban 4 × 4 and follow the Fedoskinskaya utility road to reach the main artery Yaroslavskoye which will bring them back to Moscow.

Lot 13A borders the railway lines nine miles northeast of Moscow's center. It represents a tentacle of warehouses built relatively recently to meet the growing storage needs of the new Russia. Wedged between the railroads and Losinyy Ostrov National Park, whose outskirts resist industrial urbanization's assaults as well as they can, this area establishes a buffer of barely a hundred yards. Separating the rails and the elongated residential constructions, well-positioned in chevrons or three-branched stars.

A vagrant, left behind by the post-communist Russian economic expansion, trudges through the greasy, black, hydrocarbon-soaked earth from which the hangars seem to emerge like monstrous metallic plants. Heading to his shelter made of old pallets and packing cardboard, he staggers in front of the warehouse door still wide open. Driven by curiosity and the hope of a less precarious refuge to spend the night, he crosses the threshold, his bottle of vodka firmly grasped in his left hand.

— Э-эй! Есть тут кто—нибудь? (Hey! Is anybody there?) he calls out to make sure it's empty.

Getting no response, he ventures inside. After a few seconds and steps, his eyes adjust to the ambient dimness. He suddenly discerns the lifeless body of Sergey in the middle of the light's pool.

The vagrant recoils at the sight of the corpse's hollow gaze and screams...