Chapter 13

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What this "astropathy" was, Olga did not know. However, it had to be admitted: compared to it, all the previous architecture of the Station could be confidently considered ultra-conservative. At least, it was clear that on Ballistica lived, albeit strange, but still, people, and accordingly, the living space was somehow organized around it. Here ... The farther Olga got, constantly checking the computer drawing, the stronger she got the feeling that people did not live and work here. Or, more precisely, not entirely people. In every way.

First of all, from a certain point, she noticed that straight angles disappeared. Everything became smooth, rounded, and streamlined. It was also three-dimensional. The corridors meandered, merging seamlessly into one another, diving into the gaps of nowhere and spiraling upward. It was not clear how they had climbed up them. Probably, they rode on some carts, for which, by the way, there were rails, and not double, but triple. The middle band did not seem to be of ordinary steel but gleamed with gold. Though there was no way to tell if it was really soft gold.

Olga fumbled with the hilt of an old knife and wondered if she could try to break off a piece. The temptation was great, but the mere thought of dragging a little more weight was a wistful horror. No. Maybe some other time...

Never mind, there will be a feast on our street, too. And a truckload of candies will crash under our windows.

The walls were painted a plain white with a creamy hue. And it looked like a whole gang of crazy sculptors and equally crazy graffiti artists had worked on them. To begin with, everything was hand-drawn in intricate symbols. The style was very different from the previous location. There were almost no number-like signs and none of the usual skulls. But there were plenty of intricate patterns, like Satanists' demon-calling dabs, and the frequent repetition of the three letters, "AAT," in every conceivable form. It seemed as if the locals were trying to protect themselves or summon some unknown shit before they all fell into the ground. And they were doing it long and hard, as if they were painting for a long time, very diligently. Clearly, they painted for years (or maybe even centuries?), with a heart.

The vibe of a fortress under siege was reinforced by bundles of long spokes growing straight out of the walls, like porcupine needles or tricky antennas. Looking more closely, Olga realized that there was a certain pattern. The winding lanes of the corridors and the entire design, in general, seemed designed to catch something free-flying and point it toward the antennas. It was as if streams of water or radio waves were running through the corridors and behaving like a normal draught.

Some sections of the wall were covered with thick bars, apparently of copper. And in some places, the most common barbed wire hung from mighty rebar crutches. And burned, even slightly melted, as if it had been struck by lightning. And there were no doors, only continuous corridors. After thinking for a while, Olga decided that maybe the doors were well disguised, and since she didn't need them anyway, the hell with it.

By some miracle, she didn't get lost. Or maybe she was, but she didn't notice it. Anyway, a quite ordinary elevator was waiting for her at about the indicated point. Olga dutifully tried to activate it, pulling a long, intricately curved knob with a large red stone. The platform did not move, and not even a light bulb flashed. Olga sighed heavily and began to look for some kind of technical ladder, and her experience suggested that there would be one.

It's was.

The girl looked down. She thought down is not up. But if she fell, it would take her a long time. She wanted to swear but realized that she was dead tired, and she had no strength even for swearing. All this inhuman nonsense - tractors, demons, three-meter mutants, sentient computers, crazy vidocq - all blended into one lump of feverish delirium. She didn't want to remember it, much less think about it.

"I hate you all," she announced into the void and prepared to climb the riveted stairs, covered in condensation and rust stains. The bag was pulling on her shoulders and pressing against her back.

Descend, cross over, descend again. Another technical tunnel. It looked like a laundry tunnel and let her out into the familiar atrium. More precisely, in the corridor that just exited into the atrium. Olga felt the tears coming to her eyes. This was becoming a habit. Only this time - for a change - it was tears of happiness. Almost even tears of tenderness, as when she returned to her home.

Olga reached or rather weaved her way to the railing. She threw off her backpack and leaned against the cold, wrought metal, trying to imagine how many fucking kilometers she had walked, climbed, and crawled in the depths of the fucking Station? And how long it had taken. And how much time had she spent in this forty-thousand-year era, anyway?

She should have gone to save Kryp, but the girl froze in a blissful stupor, resting.

It was getting dark. It looked like the star was moving away to the opposite side of the Ballistic Station. The statues below loomed in almost indistinguishable shadows. It was dusky and quiet. Olga looked down again. Spitting impishly, she imagined that there was someone's bald spot far below. And thought with all the common sense available - did she need to save Kryp?

The asshole in the mask was right about something, no matter how you look at it. Well, Kryp. Well, Fidus. Young guy, good-looking. So what? There's a lot of good-looking people in the world. And there's a lot of ugly ones among them, she knows it too well.

What does she know about Kryp? How can he help her?

And anyway, why the fuck did she rush off into the middle of nowhere, risking her life?

Olga understood that she overthinking. That she should take a break to think, to rest, to sleep. But all understanding dissolved in the growing wave of anger. And one simple thought - what the fuck, actually!

She kicked the duffel bag with the heavy first-aid kit inside it. She took a heavy gulp - she was thirsty. She whispered:

"Kryp, are you an asshole too?"

Meanwhile, deep shadows crept in from the corners. It looked like it was going to be a natural night. She wondered if there was any illumination.

Olga sighed heavily again. This action was becoming as habitual as the regular tears.

"Ah," she exhaled sadly, pulling up her backpack by the strap.

Well, let's hope you're not dead after all.

According to Olga's calculations, she should have walked a few dozen meters along the balcony to get to the hole with the skull. And there was Fidus, who was either alive or not. Well, it's time to see.

Although it would have been better if he had died.

Some... very rational thought. It's a sensible and very logical thought. If Kryp had died by himself, so many problems would have been solved.

To chase it away, Olga paced faster. Thinking more and more she began to call Kryp by his funny name - Fidus. Funny... She looked out into the abyss of the atrium and quickly crouched behind the railing. A black dot, dark even in the gloom of the approaching darkness, was climbing up. Like a flea, it crawled from floor to floor, crawling up the wall. Like a spider. Except that given the distance, this "flea" should not be the size of a small fly-eater.

Olga strained her eyes to the point of pain, squinting in an attempt to see more. Surprisingly, at that moment she did not even think that she might be in danger. Fear was caused, rather, by another outlandish sight, itself. The flea climbed another three or four stories up, and Olga was able to get a better look at the creature.

The legs are more than four but seem to be less than a dozen. It was either a short tail or an elongated torso. And the head... like the head of a praying mantis or an elongated bulb. She'd probably seen it all before, hadn't she? Her throat was tight, and the sweat on her back under her backpack felt as if it had turned to ice at once. And at once, as if she could read her mind, a nimble shadow on the wall twisted and slid onto another floor. It disappeared from view.

Olga sat clinging to the railing. She was afraid to breathe and afraid to look back. It seemed that a creepy shadow was already lurking behind her. Just waiting for the victim to turn her head.

At last, the girl exhaled when her chest began to sting from lack of air. The demon didn't seem to notice her and was minding his own business. The same one that killed the big guy in the alchemy warehouse? Or was it a different one? How many of those freaks could there possibly be?

Olga suddenly wanted to go back to the fairy tale that the masked jerk had created for her. It was very cozy there. But she had to be strong. She had to keep going. Thankfully, there was not much left to go on. Every step was difficult, her knees ached and even seemed to squeak with stiff cartilage.

But still, she made it.

Kryp understood everything at once. Olga did not bring help. And this was a real blow to him. Olga was already used to the fact that the cape bearer had a tungsten rod instead of a soul, which could not be bent. The more frightening was the rapid, almost instantaneous transformation. The Inquisitor seemed to shrink, to droop. His face, already contorted with a grimace of enduring pain, melted into a mask of hopeless despair. For a few minutes, Kryp lay there, clenching his jaw and twitching his healthy arm as if to beat out an inaudible rhythm. The girl, meanwhile, pulled the first-aid kit from the bag, hoping that this time, too, Fidus would figure it out.

He figured it out. Although he looked at Olga with immense surprise. It seemed that the girl had pulled out of the bowels of the Machine some amazing rarity, which Fidus had never expected to see. But, anyway, the lame man got it right and began rather briskly injecting himself with something that looked like disposable syringe tubes. Then it was time for another hygienic procedure, combined with wiping with ointments and plasters. Olga worriedly noticed that they were having water problems again. And she took a couple of generous sips of coffee meth, to relax her mind a little. The head rumbled weakly, the warmth began to spread from the stomach. Olga very "incidentally" remembered that she had not eaten anything... How long had it been? Yes, since she had appeared here or so it seemed. Given the exertion, hunger would soon turn into exhaustion. And she didn't want to eat much, apparently, the constant stress had blocked her instinct for a while.

One thing was good. It seems the Machine's medicine kit was a treasure of miracles. Kryp had gone from being dead to looking like a very sick man, literally, in front of my eyes. And there seemed to be painkillers in the kit, so the grimace of suffering finally left his haggard face.

Swallowing and suppressing the desire to spit after hygiene marathon number two. Olga searched her pockets for "Scheme B," which Machine recommended she give to the Inquisitor. She found it, but, contrary to expectations, the crumpled sheet of Fidus was not very impressive. Apparently, Kryp expected more. It brought the wounded man out of his gloomy stupor a little, though. And Fidus, pushing himself, began to ask questions.

Things were slow, given the language barrier, but they were gradually moving along. Primarily through an exchange of drawings. The wounded man was very surprised to learn that Olga had only seen one big man. Kryp called him "Imperatoris filius elected". Olga remembered Machine's description of the "X-Factor" and clarified that there seemed to be two big men, but all had gone to the other world. Here the conversation came to a standstill. The usual symbols of death and destruction said nothing to Kryp. He stared perplexedly at the painted coffin and the stylized grave, until, at last, Olga crossed out resolutely the two figures symbolizing the "elekted". And then she crossed again, making horrifying faces.

But when it came to the description of the six-legged creatures... Looking at the schematic sketch of a creature, the inquisitor flinched and looked at Olga. The girl did not even really understand what exactly was expressing the look of an unwilling companion. It was a strange expression. It was a mixture of surprise, disbelief, and something else. It was the look she had seen in people who remembered something they wanted to forget but could not. She saw the same expression in her eyes in the mirror, in the morning, after ...

She turned away, suppressing a sob. The Black One interpreted it in his way. He thought the girl was frightened (which was actually true). He tried to soothe her gently, even reaching over to stroke her head. And then he insistently asked, or rather demanded, to draw the monster again. Olga did her best. She patiently pulled the details out of her memory. It had to be said, the face, depicted a second time in the notebook, came out better indeed, more expressive. Scarier, at least. Kryp stared at it for a long time with the same expression. Then he leaned back on his bed, closed his eyes, and clenched his healthy hand in a fist against his heart. After a long pause, he asked quietly but distinctly into nowhere:

"Patrem, recte vos?"

They returned to the dialogue with the drawings. When Olga drew a cloaked figure with a third arm over his shoulders. Fidus perked up again, he clearly understood who was depicted by Olga's hand, despite all the cartoonish conventionality. In Creep's tired gaze the girl read another stage of amazement and a note of deference. And she, looking at her adventures in retrospect, straight up even squatted. Indeed, the list looked solid. You can just shoot a movie - here and superhumans, and strange monsters, and the Machine, and finally, a scarecrow in the mask. Just like in the fairy tale about Kolobok, who got away from everyone.

She would also like to know who all these freaks are.

Fidus went back to studying "Scheme B" again, sighed heavily, and said something incomprehensible. It sounded without much optimism, but not entirely hopeless, more like a description of the hard, joyless work that was impossible to avoid. And then he seemed to fall out of reality, going either into deep meditation or fainting. At this point, Olga decided that today's adventures were enough. The rubber "rations" were running out. No more than half a bottle of water remained. She should have got some more napkins to wipe Kryp off and preferably another bottle of this not-cognac to keep her sane. But that was all for tomorrow. More precisely, after the rest.

She plopped down on the hard floor without taking off her jacket. She covered herself with the lab coat, which had lost the sleeves that had been used to wipe Fidus. She crouched down, wrapping her arms around her knees. Just like the Alien who'd had his head bashed in by the giant. Olga was shaking and freezing, and she kept thinking that a fang-faced face with a mantis-like head was about to come out of somewhere, but she fell asleep surprisingly quickly.

Her sleep was discontinuous, nervous, and she often woke up. Her back and legs ached. Twisting and turning over, Olga did not notice how she snuggled up to her companion. It became a little cozier. Fidus turned out to be warm and moderately soft, and she could comfortably lay her head on his hand. Olga fidgeted half-asleep, getting comfortable, and quietly dozed off again.

The inquisitor came to his senses. The girl whimpered softly in her sleep, very thinly and pitifully. She was dreaming of something unkind again. Kryptman stroked her blond head, ran his hand gently over her shoulder like a curled-up kitten. She did indeed seem very small near the almost two-meter tall inquisitor. Fidus pressed her tighter. The companion in misfortune calmed down, biting her finger without waking up. The exhausted inquisitor lay staring up at the low, red-lit ceiling. Stroking is a very brave and, it seems, very unhappy blond girl. And he was thinking about something of his own.

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