When you walk down the street, sometimes a sense of déjà vu flashes through your mind, as if this place you have been here before, think about it but can not remember. Or when you encounter a certain scene, you always feel like you have seen this scene there, and some people explain this phenomenon with 'A dream in Nanke,' but this does not include our protagonist, Serov.
A ray of sunshine through the curtains comes into the bedroom. While he was sleeping, Serov's face was ugly, as if he was in a celestial war. His eyebrows were tightly knitted together. He suddenly lifted the covers on his body, his body jerked up, and his hands gestured wildly twice. When the familiar furnishings of the bedroom came into view, he took a long breath and raised his right hand to wipe a bead of sweat from his face.
"Yuri? What's wrong? Are you dreaming again?" Valya sat up with a lazy look and said with a worried tone of concern, "Otherwise, let's go to the hospital and get checked out! It's been a long time, and I'm afraid..."
"That dream again? Am I really a villain in my past life?" Serov took a towel from the side to wipe a handful of his face, which still felt insufficient. He directly removed the undershirt's body, also gasping for breath said.
"Are you saying you have dreams of being an enslaver? Maybe you've been under a lot of stress lately!" Valya got out of bed after him, and in her plaid pajamas, she went behind Serov's back and said softly, as if coaxing a child, "Let me go with you to the hospital today for a checkup! Our Soviet medicine is not bad. What are you afraid of?"
It is reasonable to say that Serov, who was born in modern society, has nothing to fear and will not be afraid of medical treatment. But he was afraid to go into the hospital because something inside his head did not belong to the Soviet Union.
"It's just a bad dream! No need to make a fuss about it!" Serov forced a smile and slowly lit a cigarette. His face had a worn look, and this dream had been haunting him for a long time.
A wisp of green smoke floats in the air. At this time, only nicotine can slightly dispel the depression in Serov's heart. With a confused mind, Serov enjoyed a moment of peace and quiet but did not feel the danger coming at this time.
A crisp cough made Serov tremble. He slowly but firmly left the bedroom uncontrollably on his feet as if he had practiced it a thousand times and went straight to the balcony. He opened the windows and stuck his head out to the cold December breeze to continue the actions just now. Except for a change of scene, there was no difference in his movements.
"If it were not for you being a woman, I would have already shouted up from my big mouth!" Serov, who has been living on the balcony for thirty years, kept muttering at the corners of his mouth. He looked rather idly at the various apartments lit up one after another, and this phrase appeared in his mind, ah ..., the steppe has come to another year of the mating season! A gust of cold wind from the Arctic Ocean kept Serov awake for a moment, and he dashingly flicked his cigarette out and locked the window back into the bedroom.
As if chewing the wax, Serov ate the borscht, more quiet than usual to enjoy the woman's tenderness, such perverse behavior, making the worry in Valya's eyes become increasingly intense, and the glowing white pretty face showed a trace of thoughtfulness. A month ago, Serov began to be troubled by a strange dream. At first, including herself, Serov himself did not take it seriously. Still, for a month in a row, the head of the family's situation let Valya get concerned.
"I'll accompany you to the Operational Technical Directorate later. First of all, check it out!" Valya bit her delicate red lips and said this, which was not asking for Serov's opinion, which usually appears in this tone to inform the nominal head of the family that she is ready to do so.
"Operational Technical Directorate? Can't you go to a normal hospital?" The Operational Technical Directorate controls all the scientific units of the KGB, including a KGB General Hospital for KGB officers. There is nothing wrong with the level of this hospital. Still, the KGB Operational Technical Directorate itself develops many drugs that are not circulating in the market. Serov is reluctant to put his own safety on them from an emotional point of view.
"You're also the director of the Main Directorate, and those guys will keep it a secret when you're there! There will not be any nonsense!" Valya helped her man analyze, "Going to the people's hospital in the city could potentially leak out. You can't let it be known that the Main Directorate of Military Counter-Intelligence director is a mentally stressed person..."
Good point, mentally fragile people can not be relied upon by the KGB! In this point, Serov always subconsciously overlooked. After cleaning up the dishes, they put on their coats and left the apartment. This year's winter in Moscow is the coldest that Serov has seen in several years, and he looked at the woman next to him, who was flushed up, and said with concern, "Is it cold? I told you it was okay for me to go by myself..."
"You won't run away in the middle of nowhere?" Valya gave the man a charming glance as if she had already seen through the tricks of children, opened the garage, and ordered crisply, "Get in. I'll send you there ..."
Get in, get in! Serov sat in the passenger seat with a resigned look. This car was clearly assigned to him by the KGB, but it turned out to be a means of transportation for this woman. Is there any justice? Is there still a law?
The woman who drove the car looked seriously ahead. Her driving skills had a girlish touch, the same feeling as when they first met five years ago. In fact, Valya's travel speed was so fast that she had almost tapped the full potential of this 1950s Soviet knock-off car.
The two of them went east. After an hour or so, they stopped at the place where it was written in Russian as a military site. Looking at the Internal Affairs (MVD) soldiers standing with guns, Serov got out of the car and handed over his papers. A sharp sword and a five-pointed star are fused together, with the symbol of the sickle and hammer on top, indicating the Soviet Union's defense as the value of the KGB's existence. The sharp sword indicates that the KGB's policy since its inception was offensive and that it was the KGB's strategic direction to take the initiative, regardless of whether the enemy was inside or outside.
"Hello, Lieutenant General Serov. It is a pleasure to welcome you to the General Hospital for an inspection!" After checking his papers, the guard gave a military salute to Serov and moved the barricade that was blocking the car in front of him.
"The level of secrecy in the Operational Technical Directorate is very strict, so don't make a wrong move later! If not, the soldiers of the Internal Affairs unit who are observing the situation in the shadows may shoot, and no mistakes can be allowed here!" Serov carefully spoke to Valya about the situation here. He filled his words with a strong concern.
The KGB General Hospital was merely a portion of the same small-town-sized Operational Technical Directorate. Most of those who had their bodies examined at the General Hospital were KGB officers around Moscow, with officers from the Main Directorates taking up a significant part. Several officers from the Third Main Directorate greeted Serov along the way, seemingly surprised by the presence of their direct superior and his wife.
"The building across the street is also part of the General Hospital, but it hosts spies from various countries who have been caught in our country!" Serov pointed to the building across the street, "But the scientific atmosphere there is stronger, and it can't be considered a mere hospital. Some specialized doctors and scientific researchers for foreign spies in training are working over there..."
After satisfying the woman's curiosity, Serov, holding the woman's hand, entered the psychiatric floor and found the most competent physician there, Dr. Jagoda. He is a psychiatrist with extensive experience, arguably leading this area in the Soviet Union. Considering that it is only the 1950s, even if it is the most pioneering doctor, it is estimated that the standard is the average doctor in the future, and that is all.
After entering the office, Serov looked at the forty-year-old Dr. Jagoda. He calmly unscrewed a fountain pen, then put it in his ear and listened to a short electric sound. Serov, who had put the pen in his jacket pocket again, said with a cold face, "Dr. Jagoda, tell the surveillance personnel in charge of this ward to turn off the monitoring equipment..."
"Yes, Lieutenant General Serov!" Jagoda hurriedly took off his glasses and went out to inform.
As part of the KGB, he certainly knows the style of work of the department in this area and is not surprised that there is surveillance in the ward, but they cannot monitor it in his own body. As for his fountain pen pinned inside his jacket pocket, it is also produced by the Operational Technical Directorate, which is designed to detect whether a surveillance machine is operating around.
Serov tried his best to be a good patient who cooperated with the doctor, thoroughly examined his body, and then waited for the final results.
"General Serov, how long have you had insomnia? All your indicators are perfectly normal..." Jagoda neither recorded in the book nor wrote down Serov's case. It is difficult to guarantee that the director of the Main Directorate, who was almost placed under surveillance just now, would be angry if he did not let it.
"For about a month, I had a terrible sleep quality!" Serov said in a single sentence.
"So you suffered the same effects you received at your workplace during the day?" Jagoda put on his glasses and pondered the medical records that were once very similar.
"That's not true. My mental state is much more energetic than before! There's nothing wrong with my body either!" Serov's words startled Jagoda because it was not at all in line with common scientific sense. If the other party was not the director of the Main Directorate, Jagoda swore that he would make sure Serov knew what would happen if he did not cooperate.
"Let's do this, General! Let's check your physical condition!" Jagoda approached Serov and said, "Given that, you said that not only is your body not weary, but you also feel good! Let's test the general indicators of your muscles! Do not be nervous about it, Comrade Serov..."