Chapter 5

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Olga completely lost track of time and decided that it was morning. It was logical in some way since there were no external markers, and the only clue was her awakening. Well, morning it was. The hygiene routine consisted of wiping the face with water (about the size of a spoon) and another act of grooming Kryp. At this point, we were out of running water and rags. There wasn't much drinking water left.

Fidus got worse again, feverish, and had brief bouts of delirium for a couple of minutes at a time. Kryp roll his eyes and mutter something incoherently, and then he didn't seem to remember any of it. All the more ominous were the bouts of vigorous activity the patient tried to develop in the intervals of wakefulness. He continued to scribble abstract shit, and at the same time, he was rambling something to Olga in his half-French. With difficulty, the girl realized that Fidus needed his cloak. She cursed again and fetched the armored rag. She realized at the same time how much she had weakened in the past ... hours?... day? Calories seemed to have been expended in a rush. And hunger she did not feel, probably the stress blocked her natural reflexes. Only a nasty feeling of pulling weakness, when the usual actions required unexpected efforts, and the cloak dragged on the concrete floor as if a dead man had been wrapped in it.

And the feeling of filth, of uncleanness, was infuriating. Sweat, blood, vomit, dust. It was as if everything mingled into some kind of substance, spreading like an ugly wrap all over my body. A bath... at least a shower... God, just a basin of warm water and a ladle. The moment Olga decided to negotiate with the universe for a bucket of cold water and a mug, the cloak finally lay down next to Kryp.

Fidus passed out again, dropped his writing utensils, mumbled something fast and often. He came to, just as suddenly and abruptly, and poked around blindly. Olga silently handed him a crumpled, tattered sheet of a notebook, painted like an absurdist's canvas. But this wasn't enough for Kryp, and he gestured toward her knife. Olga thought a moment, and, shrugging her shoulders, moved farther away, so that the sick man could not get at her with a guarantee. She pulled an old worn Ka-Bar out of its magazine sheath and tossed it to Fidus. He began to do the odd thing - he tried to slash his cloak. It worked badly. Olga was in no hurry to help, remembering that the fellow in misfortune might at any moment go back into the state of an insane murderer.

Kryp, meanwhile, was poking his armor stubbornly with a knife, seemingly trying to tear away the lining. And he finally succeeded, though towards the end of the painful operation sweat was pouring down from the patient like a hail. Fidus, on his third attempt, pulled out of a hidden, tightly sewn pocket ... something. He handed it to Olga. Noticing that she was in no hurry to move closer, guiltily and understanding smiled, or rather, grimaced in a painful parody of a smile. He pushed the knife in her direction and, waiting for Olga to take the stabbing, held out something again.

It looked something like a credit card, but it was about one and a half times bigger and closer to a square in shape. It was very heavy for its size. Shaking the plate, Olga suddenly thought that the thing looked like gold. At least in color and weight. She wanted to try it on the tooth, whether or not it would leave a dent, it would surely leave a dent on the gold. One side of the credit card was polished to a mirror finish, and the other was covered with patterns that looked as if they had been hammered out by hand with a very small chisel. The pattern clearly had some sort of order and system, but abstract, completely incomprehensible to Olga.

"And what is that?" She asked more as a formality, not expecting an understandable answer.

Kryp seemed pleased that she had taken the gold item and slipped the girl a sheet of paper torn from her notebook. He added his chain badge, with a stick and a skull. He said something again, with a slurred tongue. The boy was getting worse, his speech was becoming muddled. Olga honestly looked at the smear, wistfully thought that the companion, it seems, had become quite bad. She looked again. She turned it sideways, then the other way around.

"Ogo," she whispered.

"Imperatoris gloriam," exhaled the exhausted Kryp, and he lost consciousness, now for a long time.

"Man, you're such a genius," Olga automatically quoted some action movie character, and which one she couldn't remember even on death's doorstep.

Kryp drew not just a doodle, but a very detailed map. He sketched levels, indicated some landmarks, and dotted the route. At the end he drew, as best he could, the same eagle with his wrong hand. I guess, as a symbol of the successful completion of the route.

Olga looked at the gold plate than at the map then in reverse order.

"What the fuck is there to do?" She asked rhetorically into the space and called the medallion a "paiza" to herself.

The monstrous hologram still broadcasts a star and a beautiful space of chemically pure colors. The atrium was still deader than dead. There were no zombie machines, and the girl wondered if everything was a figment of her imagination, multiplied by fatigue and hunger. The invisible crowd behind the walls of the "tomb," the asshole tractor with the mummy, and all that.

She adjusted the backpack, made from a duffel bag with two crossed pieces of rope, over her shoulders. She adjusted the scabbard and knife to make it more comfortable. She covered the hatch more carefully and started walking, glancing at the map every moment. Olga left the man the first aid kit and shoved the last clean rag moistened with the rest of the water into her mouth. At least it would ease the sufferer's thirst for a while. Honestly, Olga was beginning to get tired - really tired - of her companion. It was all too... heavy. Too much.

The plaque hung around her neck, and the gold plate was in her pocket, along with a mirror. But after a few steps on the stone tiles of the floor, the girl suddenly felt a burning sensation. And it was rapidly increasing. In a few seconds, when she realized that it stung in the side, the burning turned into a sharp pain, as from a red-hot needle. Pushing her hand into her pocket was terrifying. It was very hot! And Olga danced on the spot, squirming and bending to shake it all out. The plate rattled deafeningly against the stone with frayed symbols. The mirror fell out next, as if reluctantly. Surprisingly, it hadn't broken even now.

Olga squatted down, carefully checked the plate with her fingertip, then the mirror. Quietly she was shocked because the plate seemed only slightly warm as if warmed by the heat of her body. The mirror, on the contrary, was icy, as if it had been kept in a freezer.

"Shit happens," summed up the owner of the strange things confusedly. And, cautiously, she put the things in her pockets. Individually, the gifts behaved peacefully, without any temperature glitches. The mirror quickly returned to normal and no longer chilled through the thin fabric. Olga unscrewed the pocket and found that the fabric was not even darkened, though earlier it had stung so badly that she could have expected at least a good hole with charred edges.

"Miracles," she said because there was nothing more to say. She wanted to get rid of the mirror, to avoid any excesses. But the thing seemed very cozy, one might say quiet and familiar.

It would come in handy she decided, and she strode on. According to the drawing, she was to go deeper into the labyrinth of interior rooms, then down two levels and through a long corridor. Next was either an elevator or a long ladder. Then either a warehouse or some hangar, and then according to the signs. SheShe was still terribly thirsty, but the ray of hope fed her no worse than a life-giving battery. With every step, Olga felt a burst of energy, and in general, life became not so hopeless.

And at least for a while, she didn't have to worry about Krypp worrying if he was going to die in her arms right now.

By the time you get back, he's already been dead. One less thing to worry about.

The thought was surprisingly clear as if it had been whispered directly into her ear. Olga even shook her head, trying to see the advisor behind her back. The concept sounded unpleasant but quite reasonable. And also, turning around, the girl noticed that her footprints remained on the dusty tiles, clear and sharp as if stamped with glowing lilac paint. Like in a club, when the paint begins to glow under ultraviolet light. The effect did not last long, each print of a cheap sneaker lasted two or three seconds at most. So a couple of blinks and it's gone. Olga took a few test steps - no result. Look likes it was the illusion of a tired mind.

"When you see a flying witch don't be worry it's a glitch. Fuck off, Harry Potter." Decisively ordered Olga and stomped a couple more times to make sure the lilac glitches were illusory. As expected, nothing happened. The girl wandered on, optimistically hurrying as best she could.

The journey was ... not easy.

Olga was not sure where she was. On the one hand, her surroundings were quite reminiscent of an old abandoned building. Capital buildings, concrete walls, low ceilings. Everything was solid, sturdy, reliable. On the other, capital buildings alternated with some iron trusses, riveted lattices, and in general, everything reminded of sci-fi movies of the eighties. And if you look closely, the concrete in some places looked like a rough, roughly ground stone of a specific structure. The geometry was not very good either. At one moment the corridor was suddenly going up by a side branch at an angle of thirty degrees, or even more. At other times a dead conveyor evidently of transport purpose protruded from the side passage with its broad tongue against the common sense and perceptions of normal movement. For the most part, the staircases were ordinary, but in some corners they were a series of platforms, flowing from one to the other by gentle descents and ramps.

The further on, the more Olga was covered by a strange feeling that she was walking underground. In a system of caves, which were treated from the inside, supplemented with artificial rooms and passages, and the cavities were filled with metal structures ... and bricks. Yes, there were a lot of bricks, they were fastened with a mortar that resembled toothpaste of a poisonous green color.

The dark brown cubes were also reinforced. In some places, the corners and edges were chipped from time and other wear and tear, so that metal bars protruded through the dense structure. It was the sight of these bricks that gave Olga a real chill down her spine. The logic of such architecture seemed inhuman and abnormal, if only in terms of labor costs. While everything around was definitely built by people and for people. But by very strange people for the same strange inhabitants. Who, for example, for some reason changed the normal clockwise stroke to a mirror reflection.

Will Kryp, when he comes to his senses, be able to manage the first aid kit?

He will die. He'll spare you the trouble. And it won't be your fault.

Twice she got lost. She had to go back and take a long time to find the right turn. After the second time, when Olga only miraculously managed to get back to the right intersection through a suite of empty, dusty offices that looked like identical cardboard boxes, she began marking the turns with a piece of something that looked like chalk. At least it smeared a greasy white color and didn't crumble right in her hands.

Along the way, Olga managed to get a couple of other little things, like a jumbled skein of thin wire, a pile of rags, and a work jacket. She threw the jacket over the backpack, as the dirty yellow garment was an unreal large size. There was also a welding glove, with a separate index finger, and an old, partially crumbled rubber rope and such. The backpack got heavy, the ropes digging into her shoulders, almost intolerable. Then Olga found water, about half a liter in a glass bottle. And drank it whole, snorting with pleasure and dropping drops from her parched lips. Life immediately sparkled with new colors.

She even got up the courage to look at herself in the mirror. The cloudy surface reflected an unwashed, but not deprived of a pretty face with firmly pressed lips and a stern look. Olga was astonished - her eyes had always been a sore subject for her. They seemed blue but had an unpleasant whitish hue. So much so that her brother (let the bastard die of syphilis, she automatically and habitually wished, twitching) called them "zombie eyes. And her mother, as long as she was alive, took pity on the girl, who "didn't have enough sky in her eyes". Now ... apparently the light was so refracted or what the hell was going on with the optics, but the reflection looked at the original with big eyes of the amazing cornflower color of incredible purity and richness

It was mystical... but she liked the new look, so she was even more invigorated. She even tried to whistle, but the sound echoed around her, piercing the empty corridors. She felt uncomfortable. It was scary, too.

"Wow," Olga exhaled around another corner.

Here began another lane of metal architecture, walls of wide sheets of metal with peeling paint and numerous rust stains. A fairly wide corridor led forward, directly to the elevator, which, according to Kryp's scheme, was what Olga needed. On the right side, an irregular row of doors ran more like ship hatches. At any rate, there was a steering wheel sticking out of each, and it was locked with something resembling a car steering wheel lock. Bundles of thick cables dangled rather untidily from the ceiling on rope loops instead of hooks or boxes. From each loop hung a strip of what looked like cardboard, only thinner and sealed with sealing wax, like the post office. And on the left... On the left, the iron wall looked as if it had been broken through with a giant nail.

It looked like a missile, only about the size of a railroad train wagon and a complex hatch instead of a spearhead. The metal walls of the "wagon" were blackened and stained with what looked like scale. The missile looked as if it flew in from outside, stuck in the iron wall, and ... Olga looked closely. Yes, the hole was sealed with some kind of foam, like either sealant or porous silicon. It seemed to pour out of several rows of dark holes that ran in rings along the gray sides of the projectile. That is, the bomb pierced the solid wall, sealed the breach, opened the steel face releasing something ... But what exactly?

She didn't want to go near the wagon. But it was impossible to go around it. And Olga had a strong feeling that the third time she was sure to get lost. The projectile seemed dead, cold. In general, on closer examination, it looked more like some kind of earthmoving machine. At any rate, between the sealant holes and the petal hatch were the remains of intricate construction. Tubing sticking out in front, mostly torn off when the wall was pierced. Thick soot and drips of cooled metal on the floor showed that the car had either been incinerated or had naturally burned its way through the wall.

No, they're definitely underground? But then why the sealant?

Again she wanted to swear, but Olga restrained herself. Not out of tact or politeness, but out of simple fear. She took the knife and took a tiny step forward. Then another, listening. Nothing.

Silence.

By the way, the elevator at the end of the corridor also seemed dead, which meant trouble, because somehow there were no alternative stairs ahead. However, it was reassuring too - if someone got out of the carriage, it was probably long gone. Small steps, holding the knife at the ready, Olga went around the hatch, pressed against the opposite wall. She peeked inside.

The girl had never seen anything like it, so she could not compare it with anything and could not understand its functionality. Thick walls, some hangers, handrails, instruments, or rather boxes that could be mistaken for instruments. Nothing modern, no displays, just gauges, dials, and mighty lever rods. A few very dim orange lights were blinking, and in the back of the train, the wiring was sparkling, which suggested that the breakdown hadn't happened that long ago, after all. Maybe not so long ago. There was no insignia but an oval plaque screwed to one of the hatch doors from the inside. The plaque had a pattern on it - a double arrow in a circle.

The longer Olga looked at this techno monstrosity, the more she began to feel that there was some system in the machine, moreover, people traveled in it, only... Only everything inside was designed for people about one and a half times more than usual. The handrails were too thick, the levers too long. A normal hand wouldn't be able to grip it, and the fingers wouldn't close.

It's such weird bullshit...

From a rational point of view, she should have climbed inside to see if she could find anything useful. However, the girl really didn't want to do that. She just didn't want to. And, besides, given the size, she was unlikely to find anything practical for herself there. Olga sighed - in the past hours (days?) here it had become a depressingly habitual action (as well as the usage of mostly obscene language) - and went on, leaving the amazing miracle of the technology behind.

As might be expected, the elevator did not work. The wide platform with its high handrails froze, unresponsive to the jerking of a lever and attempts to find any switch. The shaft rose upward in a dark, ominous column, toward a point of yellowish light. Either faint in itself, or very distant. There were rather deep grooves in the two opposite walls. One with a smooth pole, the other with a ladder, so that one could go up and down even with the elevator running.

"Oh, fuck," the girl whispered as she imagined the inevitable climb. It wouldn't have been easy in her normal state without a safety net, without a visible place to rest. And now, for a deadly tired, hungry, and, frankly, not the strongest man in the world ... One thing was good - Fidus's scheme was more or less correct. So next up, then either a warehouse or a hangar, then another long walk, almost to the edge of the sheet. And the end of the road with an eagle at the end.

"Fuck... why is everything so fucked up?" Olga asked the dark emptiness with wistful hopelessness. In response, only a faint humming of the breeze generated by the draft of air. Very apropos thought that the young woman, reflected in the mirror a bit earlier, would not give a damn about these problems and acted decisively, boldly. With such a stern bright look - definitely. To be sure, Olga pulled out the glass and was surprised, here, in the semi-darkness, the eyes are not just sparkling, but as if glowing. Very bright and very beautiful.

It's a nice thing, she should definitely keep it. It's hers now, anyway.

"Ah-ah-ah..." Olga said vigorously but quietly, tired of cursing, and took hold of the bar starting a long climb.

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