No Names, No Signs. Technology I Virus I Life

No Names, No Signs

Technology I Virus I Life

Irina Pimenova

© Irina Pimenova, 2026

ISBN 978-5-0069-2806-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

IRINA PIMENOVA

NO NAMES, NO SIGNS

It takes 5 minutes for a rocket to fly away to the space.

It took us more than 150,000 years to achieve this.

Part I. Station

Chapter 1

Yaroslava was sitting on the bed. She has suffered from insomnia for a long time. The clock showed 3.12 am. More than 4 hours before the alarm clock.

Alarm clock! Long ago, she hated that little, irritating gadget. In the past life, it didn’t let her get enough sleep. Now she treated it as something useless and unnecessary. Now She doesn’t sleep anyway, and if she forgets herself with a heavy dream in the early morning, then be sure, it will be right before the alarm clock. At the station, the concept «in the morning» existed only due to earthly habits, but still…

She got up, drank a glass of water, and went to the monitor-communicator. The screen was silvery with a hazy glow. No news. The entire station was sleeping.

At such hours she had a habit to go to the library. She could just look through the books, the robot-librarian did not interfere her with his pieces of advices. The library was small and housed in one cabin, where instead of the usual furnishings, bookshelves were organized on the one side and a small table on the other. For it, perhaps most of all, Yaroslava was grateful to the captain – scarcely a sentimental person. To take books with you to the station at the time of evacuation is unthinkable! Apparently, everyone is trying to preserve his humanity in their own way.

Books! They stood in rows on the shelves, the real ones – paper books, with colorful spines, sometimes with gold embossing; somewhere they were covered with dust, somewhere they were left on a corner, as if someone carelessly left them forgotten. They still smelled that life, as if nothing had happened. They just stood and waited for a reader.

She wasn’t an avid reader. Just it brought her peace of mind.

There were huge portholes for such a room. One could see the majestically floating Earth through them. At night, it shone with megapolices, as previously. Yara sometimes played a guessing game with herself – she had to recognize a city by the outlines of light.

Sometimes Yara looked at illustrations and photos in books. To be honest, she didn’t like photography. Why is it needed? Only evidences of a lost life long ago. Everything is over; the events have sunk into oblivion. Why to stir? It is better to live the real life.

There was a communicator in every room on the station, just like in her cabin. Her dark thoughts were interrupted by its crackling.

«Wow, the end of the XXI century, and it crackles like an old museum radio» – she thought.

Chapter 2

The screen lit up, came to life, the face of the senior shift appeared. He was still sleepy. Reluctantly, she looked at her wristwatch – 6.45. It is not a «wake up time’. Something must have happened.

– You’re not sleeping again! You will be inattentive at the morning co-op! – He cleared his throat and scolded her in displeasure.

– How did you find me? – Yara asked without malice.

– You have two places for night vigils: a hut-reading room and a swimming pool. Unlike her, he did not like books, – I started from the library.

– Has something happened?

«No, just…, I can’t sleep either,» he grumbled.

The morning was close. The station, like a big anthill, slowly came to life, came out of its unsteady slumber, and, finally, taking a deep breath, began to move. Couriers, teachers, doctors, coaches scurried everywhere. The station resembled a state that has everything beginning from the army to a kindergarten.

He was right. After chronic lack of sleep, it was difficult for Yara to come to working condition. She is easy-going, optimistic and hardworking, but lack of sleep has taken its toll. He, as a senior shift, needs a vigorous staff.

Her work was not very diverse. As always, in mornings – distribute math tasks to everyone, after a preliminary warm-up and a meditation session, and then the school day will go on as usual, group by group. Kids, schoolchildren, adults.

It was more pleasant to work with children. They don’t need to be pushed too much. Even they could give odds to a beginner mind fitness trainer.

Well, having gone up to her cabin, having prepared for a working day, she jumped out for breakfast.

In the spacious dining room, which is not typical for old space stations at all, combined with a orangery, and having a transparent «ceiling» that opens temporarily – a dome, she waited for her shift. Altogether, smiling and joking on the way, they squeezed to the tables and proceeded to deliciously smelling pancakes, cheesecakes, cereals and omelets.

There was a good chef at the station. He believed that since they do not live on Earth, they should eat like at home at least. Some kind of magic always happened in his kitchen, shrouded enchanting smells.

– How are you, Yara? – a good-natured big man asked, taking the second helping of pancakes with jam; – Do you still stagger to the library at nights?

– I go there … – she answered with a mysterious smile, – don’t eat too much sweets, otherwise you won’t squeeze into the lodgment! You will need to lose the weight! – The girl reacted pugnaciously.

– Today, everything is monotonous as always, – Kate remarked boring, – first a briefing, then work, lunch, and the whole day will pass.

Kate was the youngest of them. She was tall, slender blonde with the right facial features, she wasn’t pretty, just cute. But her green eyes had always created a great impression. She had a habit to look long and researching as a psychologist, straight into the soul. It was amazing. But today she was a bit under the weather. Perhaps that’s why her transparently green eyes were covered with a deep malachite mist.

– Let’s see what’s new. They brought another two guys during the night, – Sasha replied, chewing his pancakes.

Sasha was tall, a little plumpy, a little sloppy but a very active biosurgeon. He was always full of ideas, which never gave him any peace. He always wanted to check or test something. His dark brown hair

Sasha was a tall, a bit fatty and grubby but very energetic biosurgeon. Always he was full of ideas, which didn’t give him any rest at all and he was always ready to test and check everything. His dark brown hair stuck out in different directions or due to the absence of a comb either neglecting it. His sharp, inquiring glance gave away a curious nature.

– When did you find out? It is only morning! Did you run to the arrivals area again? Kate couldn’t resist.

– Well, I’ve run … – Sasha muttered reluctantly, averting his eyes slightly.

The briefing passed cheerfully, quickly and without surprises. Everyone went to work. Yara went to school, Kate went to her study. She was a physiologist. Sasha, as always, went to the bioengineering laboratory. His world was made of spare parts of bioprosthetic arms and feet. His laboratory made an eerie impression on Yara, she did not like to come there too often.

No one else heard anything about the night guests. Even if they were brought, they will spend the next two weeks in quarantine.

Chapter 3

One boy in the younger group brought Yara out of her thoughts. He was 11 and very active. If he finished a test early then others he couldn’t sit still and wait, he started squirming, staring at Yara as if he asked «Well? When?» His results stood out. He was accurate and fast, although a little nervous and suspicious. However, who is surprised by this now? Yara thought that he should go to the next grade, despite his age, of course after visiting Kate and checking his psycho type again.

He will remain in her memory as «that boy».

Now she recalled his appearance at school.

They found him alone, «pure» – with an «unclouded» consciousness, mentally almost uncrippled. Even his nervous system was preserved almost completely. He was 8 that time. He was on the playground and didn’t want to leave. He was waiting for his parents from work. Obviously, he is still waiting for them, already here at the space station, after so many months. They were never found. Completely «pure families» were very rare. They watched him for a long time. Everything was done neatly. He was picked up not too early and not too late. Andrey was told the legend about the «accident» and the need to fly to the orbital station, where he would find many new friends, and, at the same time, he would undergo a medical examination. When he asked what ailment, he had and why it was impossible to treat him on Earth, he was simply told the truth. Children are always easier to accept the truth. This is their biggest advantage. Adults begin to cling to work, lived years, lost relatives, some property… He was told that the treatment is possible only there, and the disease, most likely, has not yet come. However, it is needed to check. He agreed… Voluntarily… But he was waiting for mom and dad. He saw something there, something he could not explain to himself. But never shared…

When he reached the station, he was sent to the youngest group in school. He lived in boarding school.

Meanwhile, the lesson was easy and even boring.

The space station school was combined with a kindergarten. It occupied one of the compartments, which is closer to the orangery and dining room, and far away from the control center, the arrival areas with its bustle, transport shuttles and medical flyers.

The school was organized hastily, and volunteers from those who had the necessary profile worked as teachers. A long time ago, programmers assembled assistant robots, and now they scurried between the rows of utterly serious students, who were looking at puzzles on screens, which shaved in front of them in the air. The robots checked the tests, looked at kids who could do it faster, whose marks would be higher, and this greatly helped the teachers.

The teachers remained; no digital technologies have completely replaced them. There were such attempts, but it immediately became clear that if there was no a person in front of you, there would no interest or understanding. Robots, checking homework and holding tests, made individual training plans, and the teacher allocated more time for the student, assessed the need for additional material.

Artificial intelligence has made great progress! These scurrying between the rows robots not only checked the work instantly, but also prompted their pets. One of the programmers tweaked something in the head of an assistant robot, just for fun, and now some of them had the ability to empathize and facilitate the curriculum. Right now, Yara was looking at one of the robots who obviously stuck with one of the students for too long, and he was feverishly showing something on the screen, quite humanly.

– Philly, what are you doing there? – She asked him with a suspicious smile; – I will apply to the commission on the ethics of artificial intelligence! – Knowing that these threats were not destined to come true, everyone laughed, and Philly, as if scalded, jumped to the side, almost knocking down a nearby chair.

When the test was over, her screen showed grades, individual programs, and topics that would have to be repeated.

Yara taught unusual lessons. She was a mind-fitness trainer. After such classes, children read better, looked for solutions to non-standard problems better, which is necessary in any profession. While working with adults, tasks for logic and imagination, critical thinking helped to restore cognitive functions, to get used to the new reality. Especially here, and after the illness.

Now, while working with kids, she thought that she loved it when everyone developed relatively evenly in her group and Andrey had to be sent to the elders.

…Kate, seizing free 15 minutes, was drinking coffee. She needed to regain her composure. Difficult patients came often. They were among those who lost their loved ones. They felt helpless and unnecessary.

– A pie? Yara asked cheerfully. As a sensitive person, she immediately saw that Kate was resting and she decided to bring in a little joy. Yara knew that Kate did not want to be questioned. If she wants to, she will tell, maybe she will just let it slip… Later. Psychologists knew how not to accept someone else’s pain as their own. Work is like work. However, they also need rest.

Looking at a piece of a chocolate cake and a cup of mind-blowing space coffee, Yara thought about going to the orangery.

The coffee here, of course, is not real, but they are used to it, calling this mixture cosmocoffee derisively.

– I have schoolchildren only in an hour. Shall we go to the orangery? – She suggested.

– Let’s go! – Kate responded, coming out of the twilight of thoughts.

The orangery was big, with large portholes, like a library. However, the library is darker, but here the greenery gave freshness to the walls. Against the backdrop of the black «sky», the brightly lit orangery with real earthly trees, bushes and flowers was mesmerizing. When the glow of distant stars appeared in cosmic infinity the garden was especially beautiful. Usually this happened when the station was «hidden» behind the planet, and found itself in the shadows.

Looking at the flowers, Yara leaned back on the bench. «Just like at home in the park, by God,» she thought.

Kate suddenly said:

– You know, he dragged his smartphone again and tried to figure out why he couldn’t call home.

She said it quietly, but so clearly that Yara opened her eyes abruptly and straightened her back. She didn’t want to answer. Kate did not wait for the answer. People got used to the space station hard, especially adults. That one not old man, quite stubborn, regularly came to her not to a consultation but just to talk. His consultations finished some time ago but weren’t successful. Clearly, he needed more attention. He was suffering from sorrow.

They returned to the cafe, left the cups and Kate went to the next session. Yara walked in the orangery a bit more and decided to visit Sasha. The sector of scientific laboratories, engineering and medical research was located on the second radius of the station. So that it was necessary to take the elevator and go past the hospital block.

Sasha has been fighting with a bionic prosthetic arm for the third day already. It was very hard to program it so that the fingers felt the temperature of objects. At first it was difficult to find a child’s prosthesis, now – problems with the computer interface. Sensors implanted in the brain have not yet transmitted signals to the «hand» as expected. Sasha hasn’t yet found a breakdown yet. Being displeased and disheveled, he gave her a sharp, short glance.

– Well? Have you talked to Kate?

– Hello! – Yara pulled away dumbfounded, – not yet. She has enough patients.

The laboratory was equipped with the latest technology and more like a computer center. Sasha gave the impression of a half-surgeon – half-crazy programmer, conjuring something at the monitors and adjusting it in such a way as to return the lost functions to the body. Now in his left hand he held a semi-working prosthesis, which was repeating the movements of his right hand.

Chapter 4

She returned home from the dacha, opened the door and entered an empty apartment. Nobody was supposed to be at home. Everyone stayed at the cottage. It was summer. It was very sunny and hot. Suddenly in the room, she saw her father, or rather a person who was very similar to her father. He was sitting at the table in the living room waiting for her. He calmly looked at her and smiled, like father. He was waiting for her. She was frightened. She knew for sure that this could not be, because her father was in the countryside. They were all there when she left.

«What do you want here?» – flashed through her head. She never doubted it was not him. Despite, she stepped away in fear and cried out:

– This cannot be! It cannot be! That’s not you! – She tried to run into the kitchen.

But there was another person sitting there who looked exactly like her father! Or the same one?

A chilling terror washed over her. These copies faced each other, and, it seemed they were even surprised to meet each other.

She tried to seize the moment and lock them up somewhere. The washroom door handle came her way. She even managed to push them in and slam the door. She was very surprised how all that happened. They both were very tall and wiry. Maybe it was the effect of unexpectedness. They didn’t expect her to be so fast. Yara wasn’t a very trained but she was sporty. Of course, she could not resist their pressure against the door for a long time, and, slamming the door back and forth several times, they jumped out.

Next was darkness. Then she realized that it was a kidnapping. She was being held in her own apartment. It was very scary and weird. It seemed that everything was as always; things were in their places, no one stole anything and run, she was not constrained in her movements, it was sunny outside the window, but some man posing as her father explained to her, very politely, that tomorrow they would go on a long trip together. And if she wouldn’t agree voluntarily her closed people would suffer.

His voice was calm and quiet and very distinct. It went straight into the heart; his yellowish eyes looked just at to her. He had a very unpleasant cold piercing look as if he was a robot, without emotions.

They spent the whole day at home. The real summer weather worsened the depressing mood. It became clear that she could not escape.

It was so quiet all around. There was nothing in this ringing silence. No talking, no threats. She thought someone must have been looking for her. At least to find out how she arrived from the dacha. She kept thinking how to convey a cry for help, how to say that she was being held and they were going to take her somewhere.

She tried to talk to him cautiously.

– Where are we going?

– To Kineshma.

She was very surprised. Nothing ever connected her with this town.

Her braked state longed till evening, her head and feet got heavy. She thought they hit her with something and she didn’t remember it. Suddenly Yara thought:

«Where is the second one? There were two of them! Absolutely the same as one», but she never asked.

The next morning, a little windier, he came in to her room and told her to get dressed, get ready for the trip, and gave her a pill. The tablet was not very large, white, without a name on the shell.

«Swallow it if you want to be all right,» he said with hidden menace, looking at her intently.

She made an awkward movement, and the tablet fell on the blanket, but still did not roll away. She picked it up and held it in her hand. He was distracted for a moment, and she threw her over the head of the bed, pretending to swallow.

A bright ray of light entered the darkened room through the curtained window. The day promised to be sunny.

They got ready, went out into the yard and got into the car. Completely unaware of why and where she was going, she looked around as if in a fog. There was no one in the yard this early morning.

It turned out on the way that they would stop by some camp. There were many strangers. No one spoke to each other, they wandered in a large park, as if they had forgotten something and were looking for a loss. There were many trees, but everything was visible. It became clear that they all were being watched closely.

Suddenly Yara saw her mom, she walked towards her hurriedly.

– Where have you been? – Yara felt something bad is happening. She couldn’t speak openly, scream and run away.

They sat down on a bench. Mom had a rolled-up newspaper in her hands. Yara took it and began to write in the margins with a pen that had come from somewhere on the bench: «Mom! I was forcibly detained and taken away. Help!»

Mom read it. Her face didn’t change. She nodded slightly, stood up and walked away. Yara did not follow her, she just watched her mother, slowly, moving away. Her skirt was rustling and shimmering in the sun. Mom used to wear a light jean midi and summer white sandals with high heels, with a clasp pulling the ankles.

For some reason Yara felt a little better. Yara gave the news and maybe they will help her.

Soon, many of them were gathered together on the square in front of the main entrance. The square had three long streets, two of which were side and stretched along not high, one-story wooden, very long building with one corridor. It had many glass doors to the camp’s territory and out.

That building stretched along the camp like a boarder. The third street went in the park.

A terrible wind rose, nature itself became the personification of the fact that something bad was happening. The dark, almost black trees’ crowns were bending under the onslaught of the wind; they shook from side to side, like old burlap. It became cloudy and cold.

People were gathered at a low, one-story, wooden building with one long corridor, from which glass doors exited to the right and left – back to the camp and out. This building stretched along the perimeter and, as it protected the camp. People passed through these doors, leaving its territory. The glass in the windows rattled every time the doors were opened. With a strong gust of wind, the doors slammed mercilessly, and the glass in them rang desperately.

After a while, when everyone had gathered and the hostel was empty, the observers, making sure that everyone had come and no one had escaped, began to load everyone into several large buses. Leaden clouds and a strong wind accompanied this procession. The wind blew in her face, blowing and tossing her hair.

Yara kept thinking on what kind of pill it was and how it was supposed to work, and whether the people who were with her took it. Suddenly, a terrible thought occurred to her. It was not mom, but her double, the same as her father. She felt even colder, loneliness and uncertainty fell at once, and her feet became heavy. She barely got on the bus.

***

She had this dream often. It was painfully sticky. She felt cold wind, fear, and danger under her skin. It has already become a habit for her to go to the pool after it to remove this numbness.

It wasn’t a memory of how she happened to be at the space station. However, some feeling, albeit unreal, but a connection, prevented her from clearing her mind, and in order to shake herself up, she went swimming.

The swimming pool was a nice feature of the space station. For this, not a very modern station, a swimming pool was truly a gift. The artificial gravity contributed to the complete illusion of earthly habits. Alone, at nights, when the pool was at her full disposal, she «made» more than one path there.

She tried not to recall her arrival at the space station.

They were put on a flyer, and after a short time, they were already standing in the arrivals area, next to the huge, unremarkable, gray-metal docking airlock. What was surprising to her – the huge crowds of people, operators, porters, and pilots. Well, exactly, neither more nor less – an ordinary airport.

She did not remember her group only that it was a flock of peers, huddling fearfully to each other, not understanding anything and abandoned, apparently in a fuss. Only a few minutes later probably the only normal person in this entire buzzing hive, with an open face and specific information, approached them.

This is how she met her shift commander. She was always drawn to direct, honest people who have an inner need not to leave and not to keep others in the dark.

They were invited to a quiet office at a different radius of the station and explained how they would live here.

That’s how she stayed at the space station.

By that time, large-scale rumors were already circulating, acquiring more and more speculation about the capture of the planet by an unknown mind.

However, no one wanted to believe. After all, life went on as usual, ordinary. Only the rate of unexplained deaths was rising year by year. The reasons were attributed to personal tragedies, illnesses and financial failures. Rumormongers were seen as obsessed with crazy conspiracy theories.