Chapter 8

* * *

"Wait," Bertha intercepted the girl in the crew compartment. "Come on downstairs. There's a job to do."

Olga stretched out and clapped her hand on her chest, which was analogous to a salute in the Order.

"In short," the mentor went down to the hangar immediately after Olga, there were already waiting for Sinner, Smoker, and Driver. "There's an opinion that... we should get ready a little bit."

"For it's coming," Smoker agreed immediately. The Sinner, as usual mute, nodded in agreement, twisting a thick lash in his hands for some reason. The Driver abstractly twisted his palm in the air and incomprehensibly clarified:

"The most important thing is that it is not like that time."

Bertha looked at the mechanic judgingly, and in the look of the broad-shouldered aunt, Olga noticed something similar to the echoes of the former fear. That's the look of people who would very much like to forget something but know very well that it is impossible.

"And what was... then?" Olga took the risk of asking as an experienced member of the company.

Smoker opened his mouth, but Bertha waved her fingers with her nails clipped almost to the root.

"Don't mention it in vain," she ordered in a short and weighty voice so that the scout shut up as if he had swallowed his tongue. Bertha looked at Olga with a questioning look and said. "After. When we've spent the night."

In the mouth of the Mentor, 'we will' sounded akin to 'we will survive' and this did not add to Olga's peace of mind. She had no idea what happened 'then', but apparently something very, very bad.

"Right... Yes, the main thing is not to be like that. St. Clarence is ready to descend personally from the Emperor's Light to throw our bureaucrats out into the tundra..."

"And only the hope that the followers will not disgrace his cause stops our patron..." The rest of the company, with the exception of Olga, proclaimed amicably. The girl realized that some ancient wisdom was being quoted here, but she did not know what it was, and it sounded rather meaningless.

"Let me guess," smirked Smoker. "You made your own arrangements. With the auditor?"

Olga scratched her nose in confusion. The fluid meaning of 'you' and 'You' in Gothic still puzzled her, the girl regularly did not understand why her companions were either fraternizing or addressing each other with an emphatic 'thou'.

"The next time you interrupt an upper man, I'll punch you in the face," Bertha said coldly, but not angrily. "No, not with the auditor. We'll be supplied by Wakrufmann."

"Holy shit!" The undisguised enthusiasm in Driver's voice was obvious. "Hail to the commander! But how?"

Bertha hesitated, for the first time in Olga's memory.

"It doesn't matter," the Mentor waved her hand again. "Let's just say we've come to some agreement... on the location of the cargo in Warehouse 8. Magnets, if you know what I mean. Two of them. From reserve."

"Truly this cog has been blessed by the wisdom of the Emperor!" The Priest reported softly as he descended the stairs. The plastic chainmail tapped hundreds of rings with every step.

"Would it be possible for us not to wait to be sent to maintenance in case of repair?"

Oh-oh-oh, thought Olga, her inner voice whispering to her that the girl was a witness to some kind of collusion and reprehensible act, an obvious manipulation of the supply. And okay, but what did the rookie have to do with it? She had no idea what kind of 'magnets' she was talking about.

"We can, we will, if St. Clarence extends his unfailing hand to us," Bertha hummed. "Little one, do you hear?"

Olga nodded cautiously. The girl had already realized that the wagon was going to steal something from the warehouse, and she did not like the assigned and so far unknown role in advance.

"We could have done it ourselves," Bertha turned directly to Olga. "But the Vigil is about to begin. We're all in it."

The Sinner nodded silently, stretching the lash to the juicy crunch of well-crafted leather. The girl was reminded of the Holy One's comment about the Sinner 'whipping' for everyone at night. Flagellant, was it? Ugh!

"And you don't deserve that honor, not yet," Bertha went on. "So you will contribute to the Squad's cause in other ways. Now you're going to Warehouse Eight," the mentor pulled out a scribbled piece of paper that looked more like a filthy rag. Thirteenth Building, Unit 3, Block 2. You'll pick up two magnets there. Tell the night watchman you're summoned by Mechanicus Wakrufmann. Don't say another word, got it?"

Olga suddenly realized that Big Bertha was extremely serious when she said "contribute to the cause of the Squad".

"Yeah," she nodded without any enthusiasm.

What a day... The bastard Kryp showed up, the vigil and the whips, and now this...

"Only I don't know what they look like," she said. "The magnets."'

"It doesn't matter," Bertha grimaced. "Wakrufmann know."

* * *

Well, who builds like that! - the words from an old comedy my mother used to love came to mind. What that movie was about, Olga did not remember, but the phrase was imprinted in her memory. Yes, and the suffering of a highlander in a mustard coat lost in the corridors reminded her of her current situation.

Spoiler: Well, who builds like that! [URL unfurl="true" media="youtube:5GRu8jzc5WQ"]https://youtu.be/5GRu8jzc5WQ[/URL]

The scheme looked clear, but in the rapidly dwindling twilight, all the buildings seemed to look alike - gray featureless boxes. In addition, the site, apparently, was old, repeatedly compacted, and completed. So the originally logical system of numbering came to the appearance of monstrous cadavres of numerology. The third warehouse was adjacent to the thirty-third, behind it began the mysterious MCMLXXXIV. And there was no one to even ask, it seemed as if everyone had conspired this evening not to stay out in the open.

From the large building, decorated with the emblem of the Ecclesiarchy, came choral singing, heavily muffled by the walls. Male voices sang a solemn and surprisingly pleasant hymn. Apparently, the Vigil has begun, whatever that means. And she wanders alone in the dark and cold.

Olga gloomily glanced at the large illuminated sign with the surprisingly normal and detailed inscription 'Warehouse 8, Building 13, Unit 6, Block 2. The block, the building, and the warehouse all matched-except that the embezzler of imperium property wanted the third building, not the sixth.

Olga looked up into the dark sky and wanted to curse, but held back. It all looked like a dreary superstition, but on the other hand, the girl had already seen for herself that here you could meet a monster from a nightmare and a real demon. So she confined herself to an angry spit in the muddy snow.

"Halt," came a harsh man's voice from somewhere in the twilight.

There were three or four of them, who looked like some grimy mechanics in jackets, but the girl did not like their faces. The looks were overly sly, the smiles were sloppy... Wrong faces, dangerous. Olga only now remembered that she had not bothered to bring a knife or at least a screwdriver.

It's funny, she suddenly had an unsolicited thought. In just a little over a week, she had grown accustomed to feeling completely safe. It was so peaceful among the purificators that even her long-standing habits had broken down. And it seemed it might end badly.

"To the warehouse," Olga shook the paper, trying to make it look more impressive.

"Why do you need to go there?"

"What business is it of yours?" she scowled.

"We're guards," the uninvited man said. He had only one ear and the most unpleasant look of the four of them.

"I'm a purificator. To the pin... Mechanicum, on business," said the messenger coldly. She could tell she felt threatened with her entire buttock, and she used borrowed authority. The Squad and the Gearsmen here seemed to be respected by all. All but these four.

"On call..." The tallest one, judging by the way he held himself, was in charge here. "Maybe we'd better call you in, huh? How can a cold iron be compared to a normal live... communication?"

The other three cheekily laughed, commenting at various points:

"Hey, don't be shy!"

"You'll die soon anyway, so at least you'll have something to remember!"

Olga bit her lip. Her instincts were already screaming to run, but turning back on the four of them was akin to suicide. They were much better oriented in the labyrinth of the warehouse complex and, it seems, were ready for the possible escape of the victim. And if so...

When they attacked, she rushed forward, not away. Olga charged the first one who tried to grab her in the knee. And belatedly she realized that the baggy pants had kneepads.

Nevertheless, the blow, though weakened, went through, causing her opponent to recoil. The cheeky black-haired, almost kid-like tried to grab her from behind. For the first time in her life, the girl felt a shadow of gratitude to the elderly cop from that, previous life, who 'brought good and eternal' to the accountable goons. 'Back of the nose, the heel on the toes, fist on the balls' - without thinking, at least somewhere to hit. The fist hit the groin shell, and the head only managed to smash the enemy's lip, but the heavy, metal-reinforced uniform boot of the squad was much stronger and tougher than an army boot. The black-haired man howled and fell backward, hopping on one leg.

If there had been two opponents, it would have worked. Even with three, it would have been possible to escape, taking advantage of the daze when the cornered victim had so successfully flinched. But there were too many of them. They managed to grab her, put an oily mitten over her mouth, and then dragged her somewhere.

From around the corner, a bright beam of light streaked in. The bandits trembled, tensing sensibly. Olga clenched her teeth, hoping for help and holding back the vomiting from the stinking oil. Alas, in vain, a flying skull, a mindless machine akin to a drone, appeared from around the corner instead of at least a crude guard. But maybe not in vain, maybe someone is watching through his camera. Apparently, the bastards came to the same conclusion, one aimed at the flying head with a short-barreled shotgun.

"No," the long-legged chieftain commanded curtly. "Leave it."

Olga managed to spit out the gag and yell 'Hel...!' before her mouth was clamped shut again.

"Activated coherent emitter. Source of danger," the servo skull reported into the void. The artificial voice sounded muffled as if it came from a deep barrel or a wide pipe. "Decontaminate. Execute."

"Gears..." The one-eared man gritted through his teeth. "Let's get out of here. Get her."

Olga tried to pull to the side, but her hands were only allowed to follow the tall man.

"Execute. Deactivation," the skull repeated monotonically, following the men at some distance.

"Fuck you, we're on patrol," the brute chuckled softly.

The small gang broke into the warehouse with the door unlocked for some reason. The skull remained outside, glinting furiously through the lenses of the eyepieces. Olga was dragged along long, massive racks filled with crates, jerrycans, and other items that were hidden under an oily tarpaulin. Ahead, under a dim light, she could see a wide shipping gate.

"He won't let go," said the one with the gun. "I bet he's got the picts, too."

"The hell with it. We'll be long gone by dawn. Let them look."

"Unload the weapon. Surrender your weapon."

That voice, equally deep and mechanical, came from the front.

"Ah, damn you!" The fighters exhaled at the same time. Or at least three of them did.

A figure in a black and brown cloak with a hood and white edging emerged from the half-darkness. It must have been the mechanicum with whom Bertha had negotiated the backup 'magnets'.

"Hey, we're coming out, okay?" The one-eared man quickly oriented himself and stepped forward. "The guns are ours, we're the ones guarding your warehouse."

"Active laser carbine indoors. With a high concentration of combustible materials. Threat source. Mechanicus property under threat. Probability of fire."

The artificial voice enumerated the points with the regularity of clockwork and without a trace of emotion. In the darkness beneath the hood, where a man's eyes are located, two green stripes flashed.

"Remove the batteries. Hand over the weapons. The carbine will be returned to the authorized representative of the unit. Immediately upon his appearance."

Olga tried to scream, but to no avail, her mouth was clamped shut with all her might. The figure paid no attention to the stranger, who found himself among the 'guards' clearly against her own will.

"Come on, it's not like we're part of the unit, right?" One-eared turned to his buddies, who nodded in agreement. "We'll go out and that's it, there's no threat. We were going out anyway, that's all."

"The source of the threat," the mechanicus repeated. "Probability of fire."

The green dashes finally turned to Olga.

"Potential offense."

The mechanicus began to move toward the fighters. In the light of the sparse lanterns under the high ceiling, it was noticeable that the cape swayed loosely, so that the owner of the warehouse, in fact, is only slightly taller than Olga and maybe even scrawnier.

"Why don't we just turn them off?" One-eared suggested. "Like, no threat, no problem..."

The mechanicus came even closer, stopping a couple of meters away. The green slits opened to form two round glowing 'eyes'.

Behind, a servoskull snapped its jaws as if it were tattling. He must have come in through the other entrance.

"Deactivated laser carbine. No threat. Probability of threat to Mechanicum property. None. There is still the question of probable offense."

Hell yeah, me, it's about me!!!'

Olga tried again to twist out of her grip. Her shoulder exploded in sharp pain, but she couldn't even scream.

"Great," One-eared grinned tautly. "So that's the deal..."

"Violent, unauthorized restriction of the freedom of an Ecclesiarchical novice is possible. Response protocol. Seize the batteries. Hand over weapons. Wait for a representative of the law."

"Fuck."

Time for Olga fell apart into several slow-motion fragments.

A jet of black and gray smoke hit the one-eared man, knocking him to the ground. Not a spark, not a flame. Where did the smoke come from? Maybe it's not smoke at all.

The broadest one, who was holding Olga, releases the victim, takes a step back, stumbles, and falls managing to grab the edge of the rack. But the badly worked metal split her palm, and heavy drops of blood slowly flew to the floor.

Cheeky deftly picks up the carbine hanging on one shoulder, ducking and stepping aside.

The tall man tosses Olga to the floor, pulling out a strangely backward-curved cleaver.

The mechanicus takes a step forward, almost a throw with a big slant.

A segmented tentacle with three claws, like in the"Catcher" arcade from a past life, flies out from under the cloak, grabs the insolent by the head, and pushes him against the wall. No, it pushes him into the wall.

A sound, for some reason reminiscent of a dentist's office. The carbine falls to the concrete floor from the slumped hands.

For some reason, the tall man does not run but tries to hit the figure in the head with a cleaver from a running start.

Cold smoke enveloped them both.

Rumble. Sizzle. Bitter smell.

The double tapping of boots on concrete. The distant whimpering of the fat man.

The doors are slamming.

It took Olga a few moments to come to her senses and steady herself on her trembling legs. The skull, meanwhile, was circling the battlefield and shining a flashlight out of his eye socket, as if he were filming a report.

Cheeky was irrevocably and irrevocably dead. There was a neat hole gaping in the center of his forehead, exuding a slight puff of smoke. It looked like a tool concealed in a tentacle with a claw had drilled the hole and cauterized it. The tall man was lying on the mechanicus, arms spread out, a finger-thick rod sticking out between his shoulder blades with his half-coat pulled down, and smoking, too, reeking of burnt kebab.

"Hey, you alive, asshole?"

Mechanicus say nothing.

"Damn," the girl said, feeling a strong urge to run away. And preferably as soon as possible. An even greater desire than to kick the unsuccessful rapists. But...

She wandered to the couple connected by a pin, tried to pull the dead man off the mechanic's lying upside down figure, but to no avail. Then Olga carefully pulled off the hood, revealing...

"Ouch!" She exclaimed, recoiling.

The figure had no 'face' as such, or rather a mask instead, whether glass or polished metal with several slits. And this mask was very, very similar to the blind face of a multi-armed creature that the girl had met at the Ballistic Station.

Two lens circles about five centimeters in diameter lit up green again.

"No fire?" the mechanic asked. This time the voice seemed ringing for some reason, though with slight hoarseness. Where the man's mouth would have been, there appeared a symmetrically jumping band, like on an oscilloscope, Olga had seen such in movies.

The girl shook her head negatively, feeling her throat dry. So the three-armed creep on Ballistic, the one who sent the fantasy visions, was also one of the gears...? A sorcerer-mechanicus?

"Can I help you?" She held out her trembling hand.

The ironman's left eyepiece is half-hidden behind a small flap, giving the impression that the master is squinting.

"My body weight at the moment is roundly zero-eighteen hundredths of a metric ton. You can't lift me."

The mechanicus turned his head and stared at the corpse of the tall one.

"We have to move it. Turn it over. Uranium cutter. It's stuck."

"Uranium? Is it used to cut uranium?"

"It is a hypersonic cutter with a working part made of magnetostrictive material, an iron alloy with depleted uranium. It is safe for humans. As long as safety standards are met. If the obstruction is not removed carefully, the cutter can break."

Olga grasped the dead body a second time and pulled it to the side. A click, a short hiss, and the freed corpse rolled over with unexpected ease. There was a machine sticking out of the hapless criminal's chest.

"Broken," the iron man stated. "That makes a problem. But fixable."

"What are we going to do now?" Olga asked.

The mechanicus got up surprisingly deftly, pulling a tentacle with claws and a drill somewhere under his hood. It sounded like a chain being pulled across a metal threshold.

"I called the servitors. In twenty-six minutes, order will be restored."

"And those two that got away? Did they... What do you mean, you called?"

The eyepieces turned into two narrow strips of green light covered by curtains.

"Vocs. Radio signal. Aether. A way of communicating Omnissia's will to subordinate machines. That's how they do what I want them to do. The fugitives can only leave the service station by transport. Transports will be inspected. Violators will be apprehended."

"I know what a radio is," Olga brushed it aside, "It's just that you said it like you... you... female."

There was silence in the warehouse. The green slits became even narrower.

"Was that a question?" After a few long seconds, the interlocutor asked.

"Well, yes."

"At the moment, I am technically genderless. I serve the Omnissiah and am evolving along the path of acquiring a pure mind, free from the constraints of imperfect flesh."

The mechanicus remained silent as if giving Olga a chance to absorb what she had heard.

"However, before I joined the sacrament of serving God the Machine, I was a female. Therefore, from your point of view, I have the female gender. I am a tech-priest Jennifer Wackrufmann. Tech-priest is my rank," she added after a second pause. "Your turn."

"I'm Olga, the novice in the Purification Service," the girl sniffed and wiped her nose. The stress of it all manifested itself in the urge to weep, even though it was over. - "But everyone calls me Olla... because one silly fool couldn't get the name right and write it down.:

Two servitors were approaching the scene of the beating, one flashing two yellow lights, just like an ordinary utility vehicle, the other dragging a large circular saw. Why he needed the saw, Olga decided not to guess.

"Personal contact with outsiders by novices in the Purification Service is not forbidden?" The tech-priest grasped the iron sticking out of the bristling thing and yanked sharply. It came loose with a disgusting 'squelch'. Judging by the gleam, the ex woman's hands were also solid metal.

"You? What do you think I wanted? With four assholes?!" Olga shot up in a huff.

"The Imperium includes more than a million worlds, perhaps several million. Each has its own culture and rituals associated with intersex communication. Many are quite original and exotic. Some are known to me. Most don't," Jennifer set the 'cutter' aside on the shelf and headed for the claw bar. As she picked it up, she turned around, and the slits of her eyepieces turned back into a pair of round lanterns. "But that was even a good thing."

Olga did not have time to explode in a hail of accusations that would probably have turned into hysterics. A hand with an outstretched metal index finger almost jammed into the girl's nose, just like the mechanic who had recently lectured her about Frankenstein.

"This means that you obviously will not falsely testify in defense of the intruders against me. And you will have no negative feelings about my fully justified actions to neutralize the threat in terms of supplying the units stationed in the area."

Olga suddenly felt incredibly tired. The rescue from rape, if not something worse, instead of giving her strength, literally sucked them out. And her head was dizzy again, the clicks of the servoscull mechanisms echoed in her like the blows of a carpenter's hammer.

"I'll sit down..." she muttered as firmly as possible, looking for a stool or a bench.

"Adrenal fatigue," Jennifer reported nonchalantly. "Decreased pulse, difficulty breathing, arrhythmia. Are you experiencing headaches, visual disturbances?"

"My head," after the mechanic's words, Olga suddenly realized that she was really having trouble breathing. There was no stool anywhere, and she decided that it was better to sit directly on the concrete. Or lie down.

"Pain in the chest area?"

"I don't know... I'm going to sit here, okay? Or lie down."

"...glucose in the blood, the electrical conductivity of the skin, and intraocular pressure," Wackrufmann's voice came from somewhere far away. Olga realized with the edge of her consciousness that she was being lifted with ease. "A very inefficient body. No self-diagnosis. When, as a child..."

The darkness was soft and warm. And the girl thought of nothing else, gratefully accepting oblivion.

* * *

"Time to get up!"

It took Olga a few seconds to realize that she was not in her bunk. And not in her own wagon at all. She jumped up, bumped her head lightly on something heavy and moderately hard, owed, and looked around.

It was a fairly clean room, filled with a lot of different equipment, very well maintained, even if not new, judging by the scuffs and chips in the paint. Olga thought it was the first time she saw so many technical things in one place. Even in the wagon garage, there were less of them. Light from a large, cloudy - not because of dirt, but by the nature of the plastic used - window fell on the clean floor tiled with smooth tiles. Opposite the folding cot, where Olga now sat, was a long, narrow workbench, surrounded by unchanging shelving, not unlike that in the warehouse. A mechanic in a red and brown hooded cloak, trimmed with light embroidery in the shape of large rectangular gears, stood at her side.

In the daylight, it was clear that her face was a solid mask of many elements of brushed light metal, with two round eyepieces instead of eyes and a screen in place of her mouth. Her arms, at least from the elbow down, peeking out of the folded sleeves of her hoodie, were also entirely artificial.

"Uh-oh," she murmured, feeling around herself. Everything seemed to be in place and order.

"Sleeping in your clothes is not culturally and hygienically appropriate, but I didn't undress you," mechanic Jennifer reported. "There's no heating in here. It's bad for your health."

"Thank... you," Olga squeezed out.

"In forty minutes, the 'Radial-12' self-propelled purification center will begin its morning inspection."

"Ouch!" The girl exclaimed at the top of her voice, correlating the light in the window with this morning's inspection. "They must be looking for me by now!"

And immediately executed for desertion.

"No, your immediate superiors have been warned about the incident. They have no interest in publicity. But the next chain of command will start investigating if you are absent from the inspection in thirty-nine minutes."

"Oh, thanks..."

Olga felt herself breaking into a sweat, despite the aforementioned lack of heating. It's strange and somewhat funny, there are all sorts of nightmarish horror stories about the Unit in whispers. But so far all the troubles the novice had encountered were purely mundane - supply scams and the ordinary criminality.

"By the way, I don't have any food suitable for you as breakfast. Also, I haven't had time to find out why you came to the warehouse last night?"

"Uh..." For Olga's still dazed mind, the mechanic was jumping from one thing to another too quickly in the conversation. "Bertha said I had to pick up two magnets."

Didn't I say too much?

"Vehicle fourteen to forty-two? Unforeseen circumstances. There won't be two, I'll only give you one, for now, a restored one. But it's almost as good as new, within three percent, so pass it on."

Jennifer pulled a heavy, complexly shaped iron from a shelf, examined the girl carefully (it suddenly seemed so, despite the artificial nature of the mask), and then pulled a canvas bag with a strap from somewhere under the workbench and shoved the load inside.

"The second will be in four days. If it's you, you can come anytime, I'll sign you in at the servitor's."

"We're moving on today."

"That complicates the issue. But I will think about how to solve it."

"Uh-huh," Olga took the bag and put it on her back. "Shall I go then?"

"Of course, the servoskull will escort you. At an average human pedestrian speed of five kilometers per hour, you'll be there in nineteen minutes."

Jennifer nodded. She nodded, and there was something in that gesture that made her eyes tingle. Something human, simple, and seemingly natural, which was somehow so lacking in this strange, cruel world. Obeying an impulse, Olga came up and hugged her, resting her face on her shoulder.

"Thank you."

A moment later, the tech-priest Wakrufmann also gently wrapped her firm arms around the girl. The warmth rising from somewhere inside literally demanded to freeze, and not to move, to stretch the seconds of this feeling of absolute security...

"Hugging," Jennifer reported. "The anti-stress influence."

"Uh-huh," Olga muttered. She wanted to close her eyes and hang onto the iron woman. "Warm..."

"Forty-one degrees. I use the output of the cooling system on the outside of the body."

Her words were so out of place that the girl giggled. Pulling away, Olga picked up the slipped bag with the 'magnet' and headed for the exit. Despite the expected scolding from Bertha - a failed attempt at gang rape was hardly an excuse for a strict mentor - Olga's mood was surprisingly good. And she caught herself wanting to get back to the Squad as soon as possible. To strangers, companions on a surreal and meaningless trip on an atomic train through the snowy tundra. Because no matter how strange, little-understood her new colleagues were, they turned out to be the most decent people the girl had met in years, whether in the old universe or here in the immeasurably distant future.

* * *