Oleg was really unlucky that day. Of course, it would be the greatest mistake to say that he was, in principle, a carefree lucky man running through his life, but on this day Lady Luck did not just turn away from him, but one could even say that at first, she looked at him sarcastically, then categorically, as some emancipated persons can only do, loudly declared to him “oh, that's it!” and then slammed the door loudly in his face and strode away, albeit only for a while, in the direction only she knew. Not in the sense that she would leave him for good – after all, he was still quite a promising young man! – but she decided, with one of her inherent feminine cunning, to let him feel all the charms of her, albeit short-term, absence.
And this absence of hers began to manifest itself somewhere around seven o’clock in the morning, as soon as Oleg barely had time to rub his eyes after the last excessively sleepless night, yawn sweetly, order “Alice”, who only partially replaced his wife, to brew him coffee in his excessively smart, though still requiring human attention coffee maker, and start getting dressed. “Alice”, unlike Lady Luck, was quite an executive, obedient and, most importantly, non-capricious girl, and did not contradict him this Sunday morning. The heated water bubbled sweetly in the coffee maker, and Oleg’s much-beloved aroma of fresh coffee beans began to slowly spread around the house.
Yet he did not have time to taste this invigorating drink.
“Tilin-tilin! Tilin-tilin!” his smartphone piped its simple melody and joyfully highlighted a completely unknown incoming call number to Oleg. Here we need to note that Oleg was not a big fan of trusting all sorts of unknown combinations of numbers, but the peculiarities of his work did not allow him to abandon his potential, and sometimes even kinetic clients. For several seconds Oleg stared stupidly at his loud gadget, wondering who the hell wanted to call him at such an early hour, but shortly after he still pressed the call acceptance button.
“H-m-m-m!” a gruff male voice coughed on the phone. “Oleg Alexandrov?”
“Hypothetically speaking, yes. Practically – who the fuck knows. What did you want from me?” Oleg muttered, still sleepy.
“I am talking on a very important issue for you, dear Oleg Alexandrov!” the owner of the unfamiliar number assured him. “Tell me, please, you are a client of Sberbank, aren’t you?”
Purely mechanically, Oleg wanted to say that it is extremely hard in our difficult times to find a person who is not a client of this ubiquitous institution, and he already opened his mouth to do it anyway, but an unknown voice from an unknown number didactically continued.
“It is the security service of Sberbank. The fact is that we have just recorded a suspicious transaction on your bank card and were forced to block it.”
“A huge, overwhelming thanks! I shall never forget your timely intervention!” Oleg, who had already begun, even being half-asleep, to guess into what unknown distances his interlocutor was dragging him like Susanin, cordially confessed his feelings to the speaker.
“Unfortunately, it’s still too early to calm down and thank us for our efforts, mister Oleg!” comrade incognito firmly assured him of the urgent need to continue their conversation. “Our banking system records that the scammers still managed to arrange a pre-approved loan in your name…”
“When? How much?” Oleg interrupted him.
“What do you mean?” the side on the other end of the phone didn’t get it.
“What is the credit sum, I ask?”
“Ah, the sum…" the voice faded slightly. “One million rubles!”
“And that’s all?! Is that all you think I’m worthy of? What an unfair act of bullying!” Oleg, who had finally woken up even with no help from his morning coffee, barked into the phone. “You have just ruined all my sweet dreams! Oh, my Caribs! Where are you, my Seychelles?!”
“Um… h-m-m-m!” the interlocutor coughed confusedly. “Don’t get so angry, dear Oleg Alexandrov. This is not the only offer from our bank. But you can lose that very million right now if you don’t follow our instructions and cancel the fraudulent loan!”
“Scammers? Oh my God! They have finally found me!” Oleg sympathized with the “security officer” in a tragic voice and waved his right hand, which was not occupied by a smartphone. “And jst what am I supposed to do?”
“Dear Oleg Alexandrov, in order for us to cancel the loan application made in your name, you will need to create a so-called mirror loan.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have a mirror at my home. I look really terrible during mornings so I am even afraid to look at it.”
“There’s no need for panic!” the telephone voice happily assured. “To apply for a mirror loan, you will need to transfer your funds in the amount of one million rubles to a secure account specified by us, which number will be sent to you by SMS.”
“And just safe is it?” Oleg narrowed his eyes ironically.
“Absolutely safe!” The voice assured him. “This is the account opened in your name at the Central Bank. But you must understand that for security reasons, you can transfer funds to it only in cash through our bank’s ATMs. This is a special protection measure for secure accounts.”
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Oleg interrupted the explanation.
“Yes? Do you have any questions about this procedure?” The voice asked peaceably. “I will be glad to answer them!” the "security guard" replied with the genuine joy of anticipation in his voice.
“You know… I was thinking… if I manage to get my hands on my hard-earned through sleepless nights pennies, then why should I carry them somewhere else? After all, I can protect them much more reliably than your leaky bank. Say, in a three-liter jar… Or buried under the mattress. Heck, even a steel bulletproof safe is suitable for such a trivial task!”
“Oleg Alexandrov, how don’t you understand that your funds are in danger now…”
“Whose Crimea is?!” Oleg interrupted him sharply with his innermost question.
“…o, fuck!” they swore on the phone and instantly vanished from the ether.
And along with them, Oleg’s drowsiness, which had been tormenting him recently, finally disappeared. But, as we told you before, Oleg’s luck disappeared even earlier. Because once he just managed to brush his teeth, sit down at the table and started drinking his absolutely deserved, strong, fragrant, but unfortunately, already cooling down morning coffee, his overzealous gadget once again reminded his master of his own mortal existence.
“Tilin-tilin! Tilin-tilin!” familiar melodies rang out, and the phone screen highlighted another and, by an unfortunate coincidence, unfamiliar number.
“Hello! Alexandrov Oleg Nikolaevich? You have a call from the “U” department of the main intelligence directorate of the FSB of Russia! Colonel Savchenko is at the apparatus. Hello! Oleg Alexandrov? Can you hear me? Hello!”
“H-r-r-r… P-f-f-f… H-r-r-r… P-f-f-f…” Oleg sniffed peacefully into the phone.
“Oleg Alexandrov! Silence will not help you!” the receiver sharply threatened him in response.
“P-f-f-f… A-m-m… P-f-f… Sorry, I… dozed off a little…" Oleg yawned. “And who advised you to call so early? Have you ever looked at your watch at all?” he muttered with displeasure.
“We can call you at any time, this is our job!” comrade Savchenko firmly assured him. “You are under suspicion due to the fact that we have disclosed your cooperation with the Armed Forces of Ukraine!”
“My, oh my!” Oleg smacked his lips busily. “Wonderful are your deeds, good Lord! What’s wrong with me, why can’t I see…” he sighed in mock sadness.
“This is not a cause for jokes, comrade Alexandrov! A criminal case may be initiated against you!”
“Oh, shit!” Oleg shouted hysterically into the phone. “Please, don’t do that! Anything but that. After all, I’m still so young, I have an entire life waiting for me!”
“Don’t you be clownish, Oleg Alexandrov. It’s a serious case! We need to cooperate!”
“Let’s split profit in half!” Oleg suggested in response.
“What’s the fuck are you talking about?!” comrade Savchenko showed his incompetence.
“Well, you just said something about cooperation. Does your company have a business plan at least? Without a business plan, there will be no partnership of any kind! Have your lawyer send your business proposal to my contact email address.”
“What a fucking business plan are you talking about?!” the receiver screamed. “You are under suspicion, do you understand that?!”
“You mean that I am a very suspicious person? Ouch, that hurts so much!” Oleg was matter-of-factly offended.
“Extremely suspicious! We suspect you of…”
“Yeah, you are truly suspicious,” Oleg said with conviction. “Extremely, extremely suspicious. Fucking seriously suspicious comrades. I would even say that you are having a very suspicious conversation with me that is being recorded right now, dear comrade colonel. You have never been so close to the failure of this special phone operation!”
“Tu… tu… tu…” was all the phone could answer him.
“No one writes to the colonel. No one hears the colonel…” muttering melodiously and twisting fragments of a famous song to himself, Oleg threw his excessively chatty gadget into the corner of the sofa and headed back to the kitchen in the timid hope of finally having his breakfast.
Yes! He made it! He almost did it! He almost swallowed his first sandwich of the day! He was almost ready to believe that luck was on his side again!
“Tilin-tilin! Tilin-tilin!” the smartphone almost agreed with him in this naive and groundless illusion of his.
“How the fuck you are…!” Oleg got angry, “aggravating,” he finished a little more gently and picked up the phone again.
What a fine luck! Unknown number!
“I’m just a lucky knacker! Oleg chuckled to himself,” climbed deep into a rabbit hole and came back with a happy rabbit’s foot!”
“Hello!” This time there was a pretty female voice on the phone. “Tell me, can I talk to Oleg?”
“Well,” Oleg chuckled. “Generally speaking, Oleg is a little busy today. He is very tired. He didn’t get enough sleep. He’s constantly getting calls from some shady figures. And on top of that, he is terribly hungry. And he’s ready to kill anyone who calls him for nothing!” Oleg rattled on the phone with ever increasing volume.
“Oh, what a pity!” his newfound companion sincerely sympathized with him. “Can you tell me, please, when I can call him back?”
“Wah! Listen, why call me back? You speak here now, everything is as it is, beautiful one!” Oleg sometimes did a good job of imitating the manner of speech of his fellow citizens from the southern outskirts of our vast and beloved homeland.
“Thanks a lot!” the girl flirted with her voice. “My name is Marina! Dear Oleg, I am calling you from MTS.”
“From where?” Oleg was feigning surprise.
“This is your mobile operator,” Marina assured him of the correctness of her words.
“Red-egged ones?” he chuckled. “That’s what you should have said right away!”
“Well, we… we don’t call ourselves that way,” she hesitated. “And generally speaking, our company has recently changed its logo!”
“It's great that you have free artists in your staff who painted over this shame! Or was it outsourcing?” Oleg asked in a matter-of-factly ironic voice.
“Dear Oleg, I’m calling you now for a slightly different reason.”
“Have you run out of red paint or a stream of fresh ideas? Unfortunately, I am not a designer. But I assure you that I would have coped no worse in the place of those who draw your logos!”
“In fact, the whole point of my call is that your contract is coming to an end, and you will need a contract extension in order to continue to stay in touch,” Marina assured him.
“I would like to stay in touch with you as long as possible,” Oleg assured her of the seriousness of his intentions. “You are very touching.”
“Thank you. Would you be willing to extend your contract right now?”
“I’m always ready!” Oleg confirmed with conviction. “Especially for all kinds of work and various sort of defenses. I even have an appropriate badge.”
“Wonderful!” Marina affectionately confirmed her undisguised joy. “Soon you will receive a one-time code from “Gosuslugi”, you will need to tell it to me.
“I’ve got one!” Oleg said enthusiastically. “One, two, three, four…”
“This… this code is wrong,” Marina said sadly. “Are you sure you dictated it correctly?”
“Oh, the code? I just looked at how many text messages I received today. Here, in particular, they write to me that they can enlarge my, excuse me, organ in a certain clinic that goes by the name…”
“You need to tell me the code in the SMS from “Gosuslugi”,” Marina said a little more seriously. “Did you receive this message?”
“Did you write to me? I’m sorry, but I missed the moment when you and I switched from voice communication to text. But I can assure you that I too like the speed with which our relationship is developing.”
“Oleg, I didn’t write anything to you!” Marina repeated firmly. “You should have received the code from the SMS!”
“I see it! I see the code!” Oleg confirmed. “Four, three, two, one…”
“This code… this code doesn’t work either,” Marina said, disappointed. “Dear Oleg, are you kidding me? I’m talking to you very seriously right now!”
“Wait a moment, I’m counting down deleted SMS messages. It’s done!”
“What's done? You still haven’t told me the code!”
“The code! How could I forget about the code! He was in one of those damn SMS!” Oleg shouted into the phone in genuine horror.
“Why are you so… slow-witted!” Marina answered him irritably. “I can try… try to send you another message.”
“Wait a minute! Hold on! Take your time! Don’t drive! Hit the brakes!” Oleg stopped her. “It seems to me that our relationship is developing too fast! Today we have already communicated with you by voice, and you were not even afraid to send me your text messages. And what will happen tomorrow – will we go to the cinema together? And then I might have to fork out for a whole bunch of scarlet roses? Do you have any idea how much it costs?! Where do you think I, skuf, got so much money from? Aye? Aye?” Oleg almost shouted his last words in response to such an intrusive friend as Marina.
“Tu… tu… tu…” the phone answered him tenderly, as if promising future wonderful dates.
Deciding to no longer tempt his current phone fate, which clearly got up on the wrong foot today, Oleg rushed to his potentially extremely short-term silent gadget and pressed the off button with all his might. And he was holding her. And he didn’t let her come to her senses. And he didn’t let her go of his hands until the solemn moment when the screen of his gadget finally turned black, unequivocally signaling the shutdown.
The rest of that day passed quietly for Oleg. Well, sort of. In general, it was very relatively calm time. Except for a towel that had accidentally burned on the gas stove, sugar scattered on the floor, and the black-and-white ceiling of his kitchen, which had smoked well from the burning. Oleg certainly had no equal in his cooking skills.
Just before going to bed, when the hands of the clock in the bedroom successfully passed midnight, Oleg still decided to try his luck one more time. And… he almost did it. He practically fell asleep!
“Tilin-tilin. Tilin-tilin!” the phone sang joyfully, having managed to wink at Oleg with its brightly lit screen a second before getting a punch between its speakers.
Unknown number…
“Sprechen… zer deutsch?” a man’s voice with a slightly slurred tongue said something almost inarticulate – and without any doubt, definitely not Russian! – on the other end of an invisible wire.
“Nicht!” half-asleep Oleg, for whom the school program for learning German did not pass in vain, blurted out affirmatively, and was about to put down the phone when the voice suddenly continued.
“Youdo… Speak English?”
“No speak!” Oleg muttered. “Speak Russian and tell me, what do you need at such a late hour, Herod!”
“Zig-zig? Glory to Urkaina?” the phone asked its next question again.
“You’re a fucking zig yourself, you devil!” Oleg barked angrily. “Glory to Russi!”
“Glory to Russi!” the phone loudly confirmed to him. “Oleg Nikolaevich, well, why did you turn off the phone in the evening? This is colonel Vavilov. After all, we agreed that you would be in touch in the evening, and I will call from a new number. Well, at least you didn’t forget the password!”
“I’m sorry, comrade Colonel! Absolutely tormented by spammers!” captain Oleg Nikolaevich stretched out in bed to the string. “I’m listening to you carefully!”
“So three times before that you listened to us inattentively?” colonel Vavilov chuckled. “Well, how are we going to incorporate you into an enemy call center then, eh?”
“So it’s… I… damn it!” Oleg clicked into the phone. “I couldn’t have guessed!”
“You don’t have to guess, Oleg Nikolaevich, but to approach people. Endear yourself. You will be able to catch and send them to us a little bit later. Have you not forgotten your legend? You will leave for the meeting point tomorrow at 10 a.m. Moscow time. How do you understand? Confirm it.”
“Affirmative! At 10 a.m. in the morning, Moscow time! Spammers shall not pass!”
“Tu… tu… tu…” the phone answered him affirmatively.