Binary code: Mystery number one - стр. 27

He also learned that even the government and presidential administration didn't know about the center. And that all this supreme power is just one of the subdivisions of Center Zero, and the top-level clearances have only a few. Yuri Vasilievich did not speak very favorably of them.

– What did you think? You think there's no control over the president? Even Stalin couldn't personally send troops wherever he thought they needed to go. It's all a myth about his unlimited power. Everything was decided by the "rate" and the "committee", and he was in the grip of an organization like ours. It seems to the average person that everything is decided by the power, which they talk about on TV every day. In fact, the real power is always hidden, it is not in public, but deep in the bunker.

This brought an interesting thought to Ruth's mind. He thought, "How do all these people get from here to the surface? Where to? There are so many of them. Through what checkpoint or gatehouse? The same way I do? Then how can it be hidden? I mean, you have to disguise it somehow. It's not a problem, though.

He asked Vasilievich about it. He replied in his manner that this was the most interesting thing, and smiled. Indeed, the "most interesting" thing about the Zero department was that they came out through the Institute for Strategic Analysis under the President of Russia. But Rutra learned about that later.

After a week, Ruthra estimated that not everyone went upstairs in the evening. The dungeon itself was like a large anthill of corridors and rooms, and everyone had access only to their own corridor. Very rarely did anyone within a corridor have access to a neighboring room. Passes were issued in a very interesting way: an invisible bar code was put on the nail of the thumb, which had to be applied to a special scanner at the entrance. Every day the barcode was changed. At the entrance, the hand was put to a special printer, which put a special number. On the way out you had to put your hand to the scanner. After reading the number, the scanner destroyed it.

Yuri Vasilyevich was willful. He told me that he had been on assignment abroad many times, under different names, where, as he put it, he "did a lot of interesting things". In the specialized circles, it was called "combat service".

Rutra asked Yuri Vasilievich what was in the neighboring departments.

– What is it? Come on, I'll show you.

They stepped out into the corridor. All the corridors were very dark and poorly lit.

– For example, here it says "F" department. That stands for the fantasy department. That's what I call them. Are you smiling? Officially, it's the Foresight Department. It's where they fantasize about what could be! If you hear what's been fantasized recently, you'll think it's unreal. Think about it, who could have imagined fifty years ago that what happened would happen? There's the P-Division, for example. They deal with the media. More precisely, the means of mass disinformation, – having said this, he chuckled snidely. – This is the "S" department – coders. They invent and decode all possible ciphers and codes. By the way, they are engaged in a very intense and very momentous task right now. The department is working on a sudden and very important problem. Although, perhaps not sudden… If you pass the exam, you will have access to all departments. You'll be assigned to a single task.