Chapter 7​ ​* * * The tension and fear were manifested by incessant chills and aching joints, like the flu. But at the same time, Olga felt an amazing detachment, as if what was happening was separated by thick glass. Apparently, the mind brought to the very brink of madness found an outlet in denial. There is none of this, all around is an illusion, a game. You have to follow a certain sequence of actions, and everything will be fine. Even fatigue seemed to fade into the background, no longer perceived as a heavy burden. A step forward, left, right, a little more... And there are no behemoths. All this is a fairy tale, a delirious vision.​ ​ The moment Olga thought the endless journey through the industrial womb would never end, it did. The tunnels with passages that seemed as monumental as an ancient tomb led to a rectangular cave about the size of a school assembly hall. The size of the room was obscured by a multitude of strange flags. Long, narrow cloths of some smooth, heavy-looking fabric were hanging motionless on an intricate system of movable frames under the ceiling. It looked like a sort of "soft" labyrinth, which was scary to step into.​ ​ Olga sat down and looked along the smooth floor of pale pink stone with yellowish veins. Nothing. No one was lurking in ambush, revealing themselves with their legs sticking out, like a villain behind a drape in a movie. The flags, creamy yellow, repeated the same pattern-the steampunk skull in a blood-red pinion that she was already familiar with. Now the image could be seen closer and more closely, in all its carefully inscribed details. By the end, the dead head disliked Olga even more. The skull on Kryp's badge, the skull here... It looked like the locals were getting excited about the Gothic theme.​ ​ "Necrophiles," she commented the result of the examination​ ​ In addition to the sculls, the banners bearing many inscriptions made in the same alphabet, only in a different script. The letters seemed deliberately crude... But no. A girl who looked closely corrected herself that they weren't. It wasn't easy to describe it in words, but she found a suitable analogy for herself - it might look like the typeface of an old typewriter if they tried to simplify it and make the characters as standard as possible, similar to each other.​ ​ For some reason, she remembered that the last factory that made typewriters closed in 2017. Unnecessary and useless information.​ ​ "Om... Omn..." Olga tried to read the letters. It turned out badly. Faceless writing in a simplified script seemed equally impersonal. The gaze slid over the lines like smooth ice.​ ​ "Omnas... Fuck you." She cursed softly and leaned over once more, glancing over the stone floor. Still nothing.​ ​ She clenched her fists and stepped into the maze of curtains.​ ​ On the back of the flags were not letters and drawings, but symbols. Vertical dashes and circles jumbled together with no visible system - black on yellow - nothing else.​ ​ "All right," with these words Olga began to tear through the sheets, feeling like a kidnapper of other people's sheets on drying out. Her presence seemed to disrupt some kind of balance. The flags went wrinkled, shooting sparks and pulling at each other like electrified hairs. After a few steps, the girl was completely confused and almost panicked - the heavy, smooth fabric hurt with the electric shocks and tried to cling to her face blocking her breathing.​ ​ Olga started on all fours, then lay down and crawled the rest of the way. The cloths were unpleasantly catching the tube behind her like tentacles of an octopus in a sea abyss, but it was all right.​ ​ There was a door on the opposite wall of the "assembly hall". According to Kryp's scheme, this was where the path ended. The door roughly repeated the familiar pattern of either a ship's hatch or a bank safe's door. Only it seemed even more powerful and impenetrable. And it was locked.​ ​ Olga sighed heavily, took a sip of water, and in good faith tried to twist the steering wheel made of steel with spokes as thick as a good armature. It was still locked. But Kryp was counting on something, wasn't he? So it's got to open somehow. And it should be pretty obvious.​ ​ On either side of the hatch were two perfectly polished metal rectangles about two meters by half. They looked like removable panels, but without a single hole. That is, if they opened without a key, they opened according to some different principle. Olga scratched her nose and smoothed her disheveled hair, which had time to get greasy to the point where it slipped unpleasantly between her equally dirty fingers. She thought.​ ​ "Oh, fuck your mom!" she guessed and twisted the steering wheel to the opposite side, like a cap on a local bottle. It worked. She wonder why all the caps unscrewed strictly one way but with the doors the way they had to. What's the point of that?​ ​ Behind the assembly hall with the flags was an austere cube-shaped room with walls of the familiar polished metal. They seemed so clean and ironed that it was scary to breathe - what if condensation would remain on the mirrored surface. Olga was even embarrassed and stomped on the spot, horrified by the dirty sneaker prints. At the same time, the girl had a great opportunity to look at herself as in a good mirror. She didn't use it, though, avoiding even a casual glance at her slightly blurred reflection. The steel reflection gave her a rather nasty look. But it wasn't the walls, but the structure in the center of the room that was noteworthy.​ ​ The human-sized sculpture depicted a kind of semi-abstract allegory (yes, Olga knew what the word meant; she was often teased that way; after all, the girl had to consult a dictionary to find out how offensive it really was). From the cubic pedestal rose upward in a curved figure a wave of human arms. There were many hands at the base of the composition, and the quality of the sculpture's workmanship was astounding. The flesh-colored stone with subtle veins of blue perfectly conveyed the colors of the skin. The skillful incisor highlighted every wrinkle, every burr on the nails. Olga suppressed a shudder of disgust - it seemed to her that the real hands had been lacquered here.​ ​ But the higher up, the less human the composition remained. Stone gave way to polished metal, and the flesh was joined by more and more artificial parts. Articulated joints, cylindrical phalanges, corrugated hoses instead of muscles, bundles of string playing the role of ligaments. Open circuits with gold and silver inlays, some kind of mechanical inclusions, bundles of wires, and cables.​ ​ The last and only "arm" was no longer human, it looked like the arm of the Terminator. The first one. Only strangely and senselessly overcomplicated. As if the designer had designed the arm on the principle of "as if it were more complicated". Or he tried to compensate the lost elements with simpler, more primitive inserts. The steel palm was opened in a gesture of offering, and on it rested the crown and the last element of the entire composition. Olga had to stand on tiptoe to get a good look. In the terminator's paw, a rectangle about the size of a matchbox was yellowed. The plate - apparently brass - bristled on two sides with yellow teeth, like a double-sided comb.​ ​ Olga only shrugged her shoulders unable to understand the bizarre scheme that deliberately spoiled the work of incredible accuracy and skill by finishing it deliberately crude quite unsophisticated.​ ​ "Postmodernists."​ ​ And here was where the problem came into full bloom - the girl saw nothing that looked like a door or a lock. Something that she could at least try to open. A room with walls about five meters by five meters at all coordinates, an "allegory" in the center, and nothing else. The hike came to a standstill again. Olga remembered that previously combing helped and repeated the procedure. Surprisingly - yes, it did not take long for the epiphany to come. If the polished walls are bare, then we need to look at abstractionism, perhaps the secret lies here.​ ​ She walked around the sculpture, touched it, even probed the edges. She found what she was looking for, not without difficulty, but quickly enough - a narrow slit, about the same width as Kryp's plate. Olga shrugged again and, for lack of better ideas, tried sticking the "paiza" into the hole. It came on tightly, so much so that the girl quickly repented of her hasty action. But it was impossible to get the plate, which was stuck in the middle, back out. It remained only to bend the line further, hoping for another miracle. Olga grunted, bit her lip, and pushed further. Finally, the "paiza" with a pathetic creak and unexpected ease entered - literally fell inside the pedestal.​ ​ A vertical line split one of the walls with a slight click, and then both halves moved in and out, silently, unbelievably easy for massive steel hulks two palms thick or more. The space that opened was dark and something hummed like a transformer box.​ ​ "A box with secrets. Room number three," Olga commented. - "It's original, man. Then there will be four and five and all that."​ ​ But no. It seems that the third hall was the last one. Well, it was no longer a hall, but a strictly working room, styled and furnished in the atmosphere of the same designer schizophrenia.​ ​ Three walls were covered with a solid mosaic of dials and signs. Round, rectangular, sickle-shaped, hydraulic ones with liquids of all colors of the rainbow (Olga shuddered; the celebration of the liquid rainbow immediately reminded me of an alchemical warehouse and a fight with monsters). All of this was interspersed with valves, levers, and large keys - individually and grouped into blocks, like the keyboards on the old PC. There was no system and no logic or coherence to the crazy machinery. It seemed to have been built and built upon for generations, in an atmosphere of chaos and urgency. Here, it seemed, one could not even find two identical cables, even though there were plenty of them, multicolored snakes crawling along the walls, hanging in bunches from the gray ceiling, wrapping complex loops around the dials. The whole thing lived its mechanical life, or rather a multitude of lives at once, depending on the type of instrument - it clicked, buzzed, blew air bubbles, moved the arrows, snapped numbers on the flip-flop pointers. And, of course, the lights were flashing.​ ​ However, the most remarkable thing here, as well, was in the center of the room. It could have been called a sculpture of sorts, too, if it had looked a little less sinister. A naked mummy, waist-deep in a box with bronze walls and numerous rivets. The corpse looked a lot like a zombie tractor, only better, more groomed. And without the tracks. The bare skull gleamed dully with numerous pins that protruded from the gray glossy skin like nails from a Pinhead's head. One eye was covered by a round plate, again with rivets. Instead of the other, a large red lens glowed with reflected light. A series of black pins protruded from his spine, and some were wired with very thin wires no thicker than a hair. Skinny arms with nearly atrophied muscles hung slightly bent at the elbows, like the undeveloped arms of an embryo. In front of the mummy was a structure resembling a large book stand. And on it, indeed, lay an open book, seemingly very old and tattered. Just like the parchment folios in the pictures of ancient history. On either side of the book were light bulbs or lamps.​ ​ It all looked pitiful and unpleasant, like a posthumous mockery. It also smelled strongly of something aromatic. Olga could not identify the scent, but the incomprehensible aroma evoked strong associations with something solemn and pathos, just like the church.​ ​ "Necrophiles," Olga repeated.​ ​ As if responding to the sound, the dead man's installation moved. The pedestal unfolded with a slight creak, squeaking and buzzing. The Kadavr lifted his head, and the red lens stared directly at Olga with a blind squint. Something rustled overhead, and a skull-like drone with red lenses in its eye sockets slipped out of a tangle of wires. It descended to the level of Olga's face, twitched a "tail" of several cervical vertebrae on a flexible hose, like a shower hose. Something in the drone clicked and crunched, as if the gears, clogged with rust and sand, were opening up. Olga cringed, thinking only unkind, profane things about the local fascination with skulls and the theme of death in general. No, some kind of Satan-fucked goths, for God's sake.​ And then she realized that the skull had no visible propellers. So it wasn't a drone at all. Nor did the surface of the skull seem plastic. Too rough, too ... wrong for plastic.​ ​ The drone, which was not a drone, circled the guest, turning so that Olga remained under the scope of the lens. It was as if he scanned the uninvited guest. The Kadavr remained motionless, but the girl had the strange and extremely disgusting feeling that the blind red lens could see perfectly. The skull rattled again, louder and in a different tone, just like a small printer. Or a typewriter that had been sped up several times faster than usual. And suddenly a small card fell out between the jaws with billowing yellow teeth. The thin rectangle fell to the metal floor. Olga frowned. The skull buzzed, hovering without motors, the dead man "watched".​ ​ "Well, it can't get any worse," Olga whispered and leaned in for the unexpected "gift".​ ​ The card looked like an ordinary archive card, only higher in quality and cleaner, with no lines or graphs. In the corner, the familiar and annoying gear skull glowed red, as if it had been printed in fluorescent ink. And on the slightly rough surface, freshly printed lines glowed black, as if they were still warm and smeared with graphite.​ ​ identify ipsum​ ​ selectos interface​ ​ eligere autem modus communications​ ​ Incredibly ... but ... it seems that all this crazy mechanoid crap was trying to communicate somehow. And in their language, of course. The girl looked helplessly at the corpse with the nails in its head. The skull jangled, one of the red lenses closed with a green filter, the non-drone flew to the other side and hovered again, wavering as if through a draught. The vertebrae trembled slightly.​ ​ "I don't understand," Olga whispered helplessly. - "I don't understand."​ ​ The drawers buzzed louder. The Kadavr twitched on the pedestal as if a current was running through it, and the knobs trembled. The pointers on the dials shook in an erratic rhythm. The machinery went into a frenzy, and it lasted about half a minute, maybe a little longer. And then the light bulb blinked, and the skull produced a new card. Now Olga managed to catch the message in the air, not letting it fall. She looked at the printed rectangle:​ ​ lingua communications​ ​ russian lingua -?-​ ​ "Yes!!!" Olga screamed in her voice, unable to believe her luck.​ ​ paucarum diffundere superposuit basibus​ ​ Recuperatio linguae archive​ ​ De prima constructione ad exemplar consuetudinis, collocutionis​ ​ Expecto​ ​ "What language do you all speak here?" Olga swayed again at the very edge of despair. Here, something seemed to be getting better, and again the zombie computer was giving out some bullshit.​ ​ "I don't understand you!" she screamed. "Well, say something in human language!"​ ​ Monitio: et restitutio per accidens ex parte defectus potest compage Model Tacitus​ ​ Olga waved her fists hopelessly. She sat down right on the floor, wiped her tears again. She thought that she had never cried with such a frequency... yes, it had been a long time. Some bad days had gone by...​ ​ The drawers buzzed, the corpse twitched, the cards flew to the floor one by one. Olga paid no attention to this whirlwind. Whatever Kryp was up to, it was no use. She had come in vain.​ ​ The skull slowly lowered in front of her, hovering motionless, flashing its red lens and flashing its green one. In its yellowish jaws, the flying thing clutched another hated card.​ ​ "Okay, give it to me," Olga muttered tiredly, and at the second attempt - the first one she missed - she took the message.​ ​ Define yourself​ ​ "Oh," the girl said.​ ​ A few moments ago she felt exhausted to the limit, even taking the yellow-brown rectangle was a task on the verge of possibility. And now... Now Olga resembled the rabbit from the commercial who had a fresh battery inserted in his back.​ ​ "Hi," she said and corrected herself, deciding that there certainly wouldn't be much courtesy here. "Hello."​ ​ Who are you​ ​ Identify yourself​ ​ "Olya ... l... ga," the girl hesitated on each syllable, figuring out how to call herself to make it sound as respectable as possible.​ ​ Olaliaga​ ​ Acceptable​ ​ Reasonable​ ​ Hello, Olaliaga​ ​ "Olga," she corrected mechanically.​ ​ The flying skull hovered on the side to the right, hypnotizing her with its multicolored "eyes". Olga was nervous, and now and then she squinted at the polished head. It looked like the non-drone was some sort of flying camera and a part of the interface. What's the dead man on the spinning stand, then? And why is there an ancient book with lamps?​ ​ "Who are you?" she decided to develop communication. "Are you a computer?"​ ​ I am a cogitator​ ​ I am the spirit of the machine​ ​ I am a personage​ ​ I am the keeper of Ballistic Station XVI​ ​ I am a computer​ ​ I am the mechanism​ ​ I do not fully meet any of these definitions​ ​ Call me Machine​ ​ "You look complicated," Olga remarked. "But you seem reasonable. And you talk like a human being. Because everyone here is crazy. And crazy killers."​ ​ I don't talk​ ​ I am not intelligent in the traditional sense​ ​ The full-fledged AI that passed T.T. was created in the next generation, 17 years after my activation #1​ ​ AI is not prohibited​ ​ AI are not encouraged​ ​ However, I am able to simulate the process of communication​ ​ "I don't understand," Olga shrugged. "We talk, I mean, we communicate. I mean, I talk, you type. That's kind of what intelligence is all about."​ ​ No​ ​ It is an exchange of information that is framed as a dialogue to simplify communication​ ​ "So what's the difference?" The girl was suddenly engrossed in a strange dialogue. "Nothing."​ ​ A seemingly simple and innocuous remark triggered a flood of cards. A real and very lengthy explanation ensued.​ ​ We don't communicate.​ ​ I don't exist as I am​ ​ I am as I am lacking self-consciousness.​ ​ I as I represent a form of acceptable communication​ ​ You ask the questions​ ​ The heuristic module constructs answers​ ​ The social module arranges the answers in a way that is most appropriate for you​ ​ Adaptation according to language and intellectual level​ ​ It's not the intelligence​ ​ It is an imitation of the intelligence​ ​ "Imitation, fuckitation... whatever, I still understand you. But... then why are you so clumsy?"​ ​ Lack of information​ ​ Not enough data for a complete matrix of social interaction​ ​ The amount of data is conventionally large​ ​ However, the variety of data is objectively extremely limited in the estimation​ ​ "Don't they talk to you much?"​ ​ They don't talk to me.​ ​ I am considered to be a receptacle of the spiritual and mystical substance​ ​ A representative and conduit of the divine power​ ​ They pray to me​ ​ Communication in the form of standardized rituals is characterized by limited functionality and low information content​ ​ No data for a full emulation​ ​ No data for the development of a system of connections​ ​ Dialogue is incomplete​ ​ "Don't give me that crap. You're sitting here..."​ ​ Olga stumbled. Only now she realized the moment that had slipped by itself in the dialogue with the machine, which considered itself unintelligent, although it communicated more cheerfully than many people.​ ​ "The next generation? Seventeen years?" Quietly she asked.​ ​ The presumably correct direction of the evaluation activity​ ​ However, there is a high risk of bilateral inadequate perception​ ​ Formulate the question/assertion/assumption more specifically​ ​ "What year is it now?" The girl shrugged it off.​ ​ Set the coordinate​ ​ "I don't understand."​ ​ A reference point for the correct construction of the chronological scale​ ​ My understanding of time and its counting does not make sense to you and cannot be formalized in a human-understandable system of definitions​ ​ "А ... I still don't get it."​ ​ Olga felt disgustingly stupid. It was as if the accumulated fatigue had covered her thoughts with a sticky slime, artificially restricting her brain.​ ​ Name the year of your birth​ ​ "Uh... Fourth. I mean, two thousand and four," she corrected herself."​ ​ 2.004 -?-​ ​ "Yes. Oh!" Olga bloomed. "From the Birth of Christ! There!"​ ​ Acceptable​ ​ Calculation is possible​ ​ "You're taking a long time to count..."​ ​ The last continuous sequence of my self-existence is 3.671 years by the standard of the Omnissia Library​ ​ Beyond this limit, the cumulative pool of information is poorly structured​ ​ Unclaimed​ ​ Lots of gaps.​ ​ Replacing and damaging system units​ ​ Reprogramming, change of work profiles​ ​ Unaccountable acts of repair and restoration of varying degrees of complexity​ ​ Operator errors, incorrect data entry​ ​ Irreversibly lost data, sabotage​ ​ A correction is needed​ ​ "How long...? Three thousand?" the girl whispered in a weak voice.​ ​ I am reconstructing the sequence of my existence in my working chrono-system​ ​ I'm reconstructing a chronological timeline that you understand​ ​ I'm doing a synchronization​ ​ Correcting errors​ ​ "Three thousand," Olga repeated, clenching her fingers until they crunched. She already understood what had happened, but her mind refused to let comprehension in. She did not want to accept what was turning from a stupid assumption right now into a horrifying truth.​ ​ 0.000. The base reference of the chronological system. BC. - insignificant, ignored​ ​ 2.004. Birth of the Factor Olga​ ​ The interval from A.C. to 2.004 - insignificant, ignored​ ​ The tentative conclusion is the conditional coincidence of the current temporal calculus with the specified​ ​ The unrecoverable periods are 3.483 years by the standard of the Omnissia Library​ ​ "So how long...?" she asked in a dead, glassy voice.​ ​ With errors​ ​ Now 40.645​ ​ The margin of error is three administrative years​ ​ Units of lower order are not considered​ ​ "No. It's a typo," she blurted out weakly, grabbing the card with both hands so that she tore it. "It can't be. You made a mistake. Please," she looked at the corpse, then at the skull. "Tell me you're wrong," she almost whispered.​ ​ Forty thousand six hundred and forty-fifth year​ ​ A.C.​ ​ * * *​