Just dye them any other color than their original red, and any stalker would gladly pay 500 for one without blinking an eye. I swore a long time ago that one of these days I would figure out a way to swipe one. At first glance it didn't seem like anything special, just an outfit like a diving suit with a bubble-top helmet with a visor. Not really like a diver's—more like a jet pilot's or an astronaut's. It was light, comfortable, without binding anywhere, and you didn't sweat in it. In a little suit like that you could go through fire, and gas couldn't penetrate it. They say even a bullet can't get through. Of course, fire and mustard gases and bullets are all earthly human things. Nothing like that exists in the Zone and there is no need to fear things like that in the Zone. And anyway, to tell the truth, people drop like flies in the special suits too. It's another matter that maybe many many more would die without the suits. The suits are 100 percent protection against the burning fluff, for example, and against the spitting devil's cabbage … All right.

We pulled on the special suits. I poured the nuts and bolts from the bag into my hip pocket, and we trekked across the institute yard to the Zone entrance. That's the routine they have here, so that everyone will see the heroes of science laying down their lives on the altar of humanity, knowledge, and the holy ghost. Amen. And sure enough—all the way up to the fifteenth floor sympathetic faces watched us off. All we lacked were waving hankies and an orchestra. “Hup two,” I said to Tender. “Suck in your gut, you flabby platoon! A grateful mankind will never forget you!"

He looked at me and I saw that he was in no shape for joking around. And he was right, this was no time for jokes. But when you're going out into the Zone you can either cry or joke—and I never cried, even as a child. I looked at Kirill. He was holding up under the strain, but was moving his lips, like he was praying.