A phone on a desk showing a messaging conversation — short messages, some with longer gaps between them. Beside the phone, a notepad with a name written at the top and two questions below it, one circled. Saturday morning light. The atmosphere is a conversation that moved somewhere unexpected. Photorealistic, cinematic, pale Saturday morning light, documentary photography style, shallow depth of field, muted warm-grey palette.

Ruslan told Dima on Friday evening. Dima wrote to me at 09:14 on Saturday morning.

The First Message

ok so belov literally emailed you like just emailed you

I confirmed this.

and you’re taking the train for 40 hours to meet him in yekaterinburg alone

I confirmed this also.

There was a pause of four minutes and thirty seconds. I know this because I had the conversation open on my phone and I noticed when the next message appeared.

The Question

wait sorochin warned you thursday belov wrote friday did they know each other

I read this three times.

Sorochin and Belov co-authored a paper in 1977. They worked together at the Omsk Energy Institute for at least two years. Belov submitted his internal report in early 1979 and was transferred in June 1979. Sorochin’s publications continue until 1983 — four years of overlap with Belov’s silence. They knew each other, certainly. What happened between them after June 1979 is not something I can answer.

But Dima’s question was more specific than that. Sorochin warned on April 9. Belov wrote on April 10. Twenty-four hours apart. Either this is coincidence, or they are still in contact, or one of them heard something that prompted the other to act. I had not written this down explicitly. I had noticed the timing and filed it without labeling it.

I wrote to Dima: yes, they knew each other. I do not know if they are still in contact.

He replied:

so either sorochin warned you because he knew belov was about to write or belov wrote because he heard sorochin had warned you or coincidence which one do you think

I told him I did not know.

He said:

i think sorochin knows belov is still alive and i think he warned you because he thought that would stop you and when it didn’t belov decided that was the signal to write

I sat with this for a while. It is a specific hypothesis. It requires Sorochin and Belov to be in contact, which is plausible. It requires Sorochin to have told Belov that he warned me, which is also plausible. It requires Belov to have interpreted my non-stopping as a signal worth responding to — which I find, for reasons I cannot fully articulate, the most plausible part of the three.

I wrote: this is a reasonable hypothesis. I cannot confirm it.

Dima: “yeah but does it feel right”

I wrote: I do not use feeling as a confirmation method.

Dima: “ok but does it”

I did not answer that one directly. I wrote that I would ask Belov when I saw him.

The End of the Conversation

We discussed the waypoints briefly — he had seen Ruslan’s list and wanted to know if there was a measurement at the Tyumen waypoint specifically, because he had a theory about the gradient behavior in that segment. I said I would try.

Then:

are you going alone

Yes.

ok take care of yourself

I noted the time: 10:47. We had been talking for one hour and thirty-three minutes.

I have known Dima since he sent me fake emails from a fictional research consortium. He was fourteen then. He is still fourteen. He asks questions that arrive in specific places.

Current status:

  • Dima’s observation: Sorochin warned April 9; Belov wrote April 10 — 24 hours; either coincidence, coordinated, or reactive
  • Dima’s hypothesis: Sorochin told Belov about the warning; Belov interpreted Anatoli’s non-stopping as a signal to make contact
  • Anatoli’s assessment: plausible; cannot confirm; will ask Belov
  • Tyumen waypoint: Dima wants specific measurement; will attempt
  • Question to ask Belov added to list: Did Sorochin contact you?
  • Departure: tomorrow morning, Almaty-1
  • Misha: arrived 10:51 (4 minutes after conversation ended), settled on windowsill
  • Emotional state: one question sharper than before

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