Chapter 10

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And again the tank bounced over the snow-covered tundra, creaking with shock absorbers, thoroughly shaking the contents of the iron womb. This time Olga quickly, properly equipped herself, plugged all the connectors in the proper places, and in general felt a little more confident. There was considerably less space in the vehicle. Kryp was skinny, but his dead servant, with his multi-barreled shotgun, took up as much space as an ordinary man and a half.

"Why is there only one tank?" Olga asked, standing up and leaning toward the monk. She used the weighty cart with the tank as an anchor and an additional point of support.

"What?" the Priest looked at her incomprehensively, adjusting the gas mask hanging around his neck.

"Our train, it's big," Olga patiently explained. "But there's only one tank. Is it a tank for the whole armored train?"

"Oh, I see," the Priest shook his bald head with huge bald spots. "Well, you picked a hell moment..."

It sounded judgmental, but the shepherd's pale gray eyes were filled with wisps of cheerful and slightly sad irony.

"There was more," said the monk briefly. "Did you see the trail?"

"The trail?.." Olga thought to the accompaniment of the 'Chimera's' rumble. The engine itself worked quite quietly for such a huge machine, but the tank was full of things that could rattle, jingle, bang - and did not hesitate to do so.

"The trail from the sea," the monk said patiently. "We just passed it."

"Ah, yes."

"That's where they all stayed," the monk finished exhaustively, and with a stern look made it clear that the conversation was over.

The girl sank back down on the cold metal, feeling a bitter lump go up to her throat. The danger of serving in the Squad was turning from an abstraction to a pressing problem before her eyes. And Olga knew for a fact that she had enough of demons, monsters, and adventures of all kinds.

She met her eyes with Kryp. Fidus seemed funny and ridiculous in the standard overalls that hung over the long inquisitor like an old cloak on a scarecrow. But Kryptman looked calm and confident. So that she wanted to snuggle up to him, wrap herself in the folds of a suit of tarpaulin impregnated with the anti-fire agent, and think about nothing else.

Wonder she'd hugged Kryp before, and he was very warm, cozy, almost like an iron Jenni with a heat output to the surface of her body. Well, yes, Fidus was wounded and feverish.

By the way...

Olga suddenly thought of a simple and very interesting thought. Why isn't there a medic in the unit? Don't they get wounds here? Or does everyone know how to heal, only she, by a misunderstanding, has not yet been taught the basics of first aid? That's a lot of weird stuff, isn't it? But when you think about it... Forty thousand years! An unimaginable pile of centuries. It's more surprising that she understands anything at all. And then the familiar and already hated red lamp blinked, heralding the end of the trip, the disembarkation, and a lot of adventure. Or, with luck, a false alarm.

God, let it be nothing again! The girl pleaded, and the 'Chimera' stopped, gnashing its iron guts, which the tech-priest had diligently serviced and blessed.

This time the squads arrived in an area built up with overgrown apartment buildings. If Olga had not known that she was separated from the Soviet Union by more than four hundred centuries, she might have thought that she was surrounded by an ordinary city with a non-standard layout and buildings adapted to the climate. The blocky high-rises on brick foundations seemed very familiar and homely. Just looking at them made her want to go up to the staircase, open the door to the apartment with the keys, boil cocoa water on the gas stove, and curl up in a warm blanket right under the central heating radiator. Better yet, with a cat. She remembered that in old Japan they used to sell special cats to take to bed in winter for warmth.

Here, on the edge of the tundra town, a whole bouquet of local law enforcers gathered again. The cops, the Federals-arbitrators, the grim officers of the Inquisition. Olga slouched and lowered her gaze, trying to appear small and inconspicuous. Small helicopters, either single-seat or automatic, buzzed overhead. Not far away, a monstrous tank, twice the size of the squadron's Chimera, with a bulldozer blade and a real turret, was tossing and turning, mercilessly smoking its prometheum diesel and disfiguring the pavement. Only the cannon was strange as if it were not a cannon at all, but an inflated shower nozzle. Yeah, just like the nozzle of the acid sprayer the Priest have.

It was cold, and it was getting dark-the sunset promised to be early and aggravated by the weather. Snowflakes fell sparsely from the gloomy sky. Bertha and the Priest exchanged a few words with the arbiter, wearing white armor that looked like antique armor. The arbiter was leaning on a shield, hand-painted with words of prayer, and seemed troubled. As the conversation progressed, the same expression flashed across the faces of the monk and the bodybuilder. The trio was joined by someone outfitted similarly to the troopers, only much better and more expensive. The conversation became heated, but apparently without mutual recriminations.

"Don't be scared."

Olga jerked in surprise, thinking that Fidus was a bastard and an asshole. Don't sneak up from behind like that. But it was Demetrius. He had a short-barreled rifle hanging behind him, and an elaborate medical-like backpack on his chest. Separate pouches were strapped to his thighs, went all the way around his waist, and even stuck out on his shoulders. The novice had the appearance of a man fully focused on a socially useful task.

No, it seems there will be someone to put iodine on a cut finger after all.

"I'm not afraid!" The girl turned her nose up, compensating for her fright with ostentatious bravado.

"And that' right," the boy smiled softly, seemingly in no way deceived by his companion's demonstrative bravery. "Whatever happens to each of us has long since been accounted for in the Emperor's will, and will happen according to His providence."

"That's reassuring," Olga gritted her teeth and once again thought that her tongue was her enemy. But Demetrius only nodded.

In the meantime, the Mentor and the monk had finished talking to the arbiter and the 'chemist. Bertha spat greedily into the muddy snow, trampled by many boots, and readjusted her weapon and the respirator she wore instead of a gas mask. The Priest blessed himself with an aquila and placed his fists on his waist chain, gripping it like a handrail. Both returned to the small detachment that waited in silent patience, even Driver halfway out of the hatch and lifted one 'ear' of the tank helmet to hear better. With his reddish skin and silver beads, he looked like a mad Indian cosplaying a World War II tank man.

"Turn around," Bertha traced an ellipse with her hand, making it clear that 'turn around' didn't mean 'go back' at all. Olga's heart thudded heavily in her ribs and seemed to fall somewhere in her pelvis. "Let's go inside. There's shit in the house. We'll have a look."

"Whoever is weak in faith is a fool and a dead man himself," the Priest added. "Is that clear?"

The team responded with a discordant murmur, spreading out in fighting order. Olga thought wistfully that the house was ladders, and dragging a cart up and down ladders was a total sh...

"Let's go straight!' Bertha yelled angrily, knocking out all the outside thoughts. "Hurry up with your legs, you skinny!"

"Well, here goes the work," Smoker said squeakily, running forward as a scout should.

Savlar squelched disgustingly at the hole, drawing in the cold air. Olga remained silent, struggling to keep up with her flamethrower.

The house was large and cordoned off on all sides. Olga saw the familiar symbols of the Ecclesiarchy, the Inquisition, and other badges. Instead of ribbons, they used real chains of light silver metal, maybe really silver. Priests in wide, richly embroidered gold coats were swinging their censers, chanting litanies. The police were beating someone with very long truncheons, clearing the area. The army brought up some real tanks, and the arbiters cordoned everything off with armored cars, with machine-gun turrets spinning menacingly on them. Along with the pillar supports for the barrier chain, the novices set up large roasting pits, pouring some pungent-smelling grass into the coals. All in all, it looked a lot like an advanced high-tech exorcism.

A priest in the longest and most luxurious coat greeted the unit's Priest. The holy fathers exchanged a few words, then the unit was let through the fence. Everyone around, regardless of departmental affiliation, looked at the rather unrepresentative team with fearful reverence. Olga thought that she would look at a person in her right mind and mind sticking a hand into a terrarium full of poisonous spiders. The thought, of course, did not add to her calmness and optimism. The words to pray to the Emperor, which he had already learned, rolled on her tongue. On the other hand, it was even nice to be noticed and respected by serious people from imposing organizations, even if the deference was taken for hire, at the expense of the reputation of the Squad.

They were taken not to the front entrance, but to the technical gate, through which the trucks were driven to the minus first floor. Olga was still waiting for some kind of briefing, but apparently, this empty formality was considered unnecessary here. Huge novices in chain mail similar to that worn by the Priest unlocked the rattling gate, padded with old zinc.

"May the Emperor's mercy be with you," the coat-coated shepherd admonished in the well-pitched voice of a professional orator. "May He preserve your souls from filth, heresy, and faithlessness. May your spirit be stronger and harder than steel."

"Verily, in Him we trust," replied the Priest.

"Amen," the crew chattered, but sincerely, and Olga repeated after them:

"Amen!"

The girl had expected the squad team to go inside, accompanied by the reinforcements, thanks to so much and all piled up around the high-rise. However, the deed, by all appearances, was intended only for the 'purificators'. The girl felt herself getting into the spirit of service with every step.

The sensation of attentive, pressing attention stabbed like the touch of a scalpel on a nerve. It wasn't painful, but rather unpleasant, alien. It was as if some entity had awakened from its slumber or deep reverie, opened its eyes, and glanced over to see who it was that had disturbed its tranquility. A quick, unfocused look from the basilisk. There was no malice, no human emotion of any kind, just a physical heaviness and tingling that made her want to tear her clothes and skin, to brush away her bare muscles and cure the nasty itch. This was how an animated trap, a living alarm system, might have looked. Olga furtively looked around, but either the sensation was only hers, or the others were used to it.

"Masks," Bertha commanded softly, but impressively. "Lights. And forward, to the glory of St. Clarence."

"The facility is sealed!" Someone behind the back yelled into a megaphone. "The maintenance company has started work! The area is closed until authorized by the Squad! For quarantine violations, burn on the spot! Watch the seals, the cordon shoots without warning!"

God, be merciful, Olga pleaded to herself, pulling the gray muzzle of her gas mask that smelled like Chinese rubber with her trembling hands.

The inside of the house was much larger. It also had a completely alien layout. Most of all it looked like the 'tower' from 'Judge Dredd', not the puppet menace with Stallone, but the real one, where the lower jaw of Karl Urban, who Olga had liked a lot in her time, played. A tough dude with a sad look... Anyway, back to the house.

The building was built around a large atrium, which led in a blind well far up, to the gray roof. Olga shuddered, remembering that she had already seen a similar layout, and nothing good came out then. The impression was compounded by a large statue of some local saint in the center of the square. According to traces, earlier flowers and candles had been dragged to the statue, but now the flowers had been scattered and trampled, and the stone statue had been broken and stacked in a pyramid. Only the head with a mournful expression was placed separately.

"Heretics," the shepherd condemned relishingly, and no one objected.

Such a deliberate desecration of a shrine could only be conscious, and therefore heretical. The Holy Man quickly muttered into the tube of the radio that swung a folded antenna behind his back. Bertha silently waved her hand, Smoker understood correctly, and circled the perimeter of the atrium, shining a powerful flashlight.

Olga noted that the three flamethrowers stood in such a way as to block any direction of attack without hitting each other. Crybaby was sobbing as usual, but the heavy flamethrower held firmly. She wonders how he manages to sob with his mask on...? The Priest was making some passes with one hand, not letting go of the handle of the acid cannon with the other.

"No blood, no traces, no bodies," Smoker reported as he emerged from the side corridor.

"Let's go," Bertha ordered. Olga sighed and wheeled the cart behind Crybaby.

The building was a mishmash of corridors, some as if they existed by themselves, while others had rows of identical dark-brown plastic doors with stenciled numbers on either side. There was a system here, but to understand it you had to live here, or at least hang around. To an outsider like Olga, everything was the same and hopelessly confusing. At least the problem of carts was solved. All the stairs were accompanied by ramps, like wheelchairs. Instead of elevators, in some places, vertical wells were made right into the walls. These looked like one-person platforms, or a not-so-subtle load, like an escalator, used to roll up and down in them. Now everything was frozen in motionlessness.

"Do you see it?" The Priest asked, pointing to the wall with the barrel of his weapon.

"Yes," answered Bertha. The laryngophone transmitted the bodybuilder's grim tone almost without interference.

I don't see' thought Olga.

"Heretics," the Holy Man hissed with hatred, and then the girl realized.

No symbols. Nothing at all, not even an image or a wax-stamped prayer sheet. A sterile, anti-religious emptiness.

"Let's go higher," Bertha ordered and Smoker ran away again. The Holy Man kept muttering into his talker, seeming to be reporting live. It was a little reassuring, and there was a sense of attachment to the big world beyond the walls of the dingy and dreary building.

In theory, they could do without lanterns, the lights under the high yellow ceilings were blinking properly. However, the squad was disciplined in shining headlights into all corners. Olga strained her skinny muscles, rolling the cart, which seemed to add a kilogram for every dozen meters of travel. The mask did not interfere with her breathing or visibility, but the noise of the valves when she exhaled was very annoying, soft but constant. Why not take off the stupid mask, if everything was still normal?

The third floor, then the fourth. The troops wore underwear under their overalls and wool sweaters that looked like they were knitted from strings. It was supposed to absorb sweat well and generally dissipate excess heat. But the girl felt that soon the heavy boots would be bubbling with moisture, or maybe Olga would just run out of heatstroke. It was a good thing that Sinner - again, silently - had shown a trick a few days ago with a rag bandage on her forehead under her mask. Otherwise, the sweat would probably have puked out her eyes, or she would have had to pull down her gas mask to wipe her face and, accordingly, get the heat from Bertha.

The Smoker ran in circles like a clockwork man, ducking into all the corridors, popping out of incomprehensible corners. The servitor stepped heavy and measured on the yellow-brown tiles, turning his bald head independently of the body's movements. A full turn to the left, to the stop of the vertebrae, then to the right, and again in the same cycle.

"Not a soul," Smoker reported. "No one at all, as if they never lived there."

The doors, Olga thought. All the doors were closed as if no one lived here. But some people had definitely been here, and not long ago. Along the way, the department came across signs of the building's inhabitants. An abandoned toy in the form of a peeling, yellow-painted Emperor. An ordinary mop with a wet rag was abandoned orphaned in the middle of the corridor as if it had been dropped in mid-movement. A book was left on a small chair next to a wheelchair cane. Olga immediately imagined some old man who used to pass the hours in the wide corridor, poisoning the lives of the neighbors. Or maybe the opposite, looking after children while their parents were busy. There seemed to be a lot of children here - toys were common, almost all old and very cheap-looking, many times mended. Apparently, they had served many generations.

Olga did not care about the whole world of the theocratic future and its population, even if it lived on a billion planets.

But kids...

Looking at the painstakingly stitched balls with aquiles, the small tanks, the soldier figurines, frayed by many children's hands until the smallest details disappeared, the girl felt... not fear, but something else entirely. A feeling of the extreme importance of everything that was going on around her. And again her own importance, her involvement in a very serious and responsible matter.

The adults might eat each other, but the children had to be found. The girls would once again have tea with bald dolls with shamrocks on their cheeks, and the boys would play with ugly figures of upright, fanged toads with truncheons.

Then the squad met a fallen pot, from which spilled a brew of horrifying unappetizing quality. The squad made a stand, and the Priest studied the contents with such care and caution as if the crumpled tin contained a plague elixir.

"Vegetables, not a scrap of meat," the monk finally reported, and everyone seemed relieved as they moved on. Only the shepherd lingered, turned the acid to the minimum, and poured a caustic mixture over someone's unfortunate dinner that seemed to melt even the tiles. Here was where the masks worked their magic; there was so much poisonous smoke that without gas masks my lungs would have escaped through my throat.

"Shall we break down the door? - either ordered or suggested the Priest. After a short pause, Bertha nodded and pointed, seemingly at random, at one of the identical rectangles. The team immediately rearranged, it was up to Sinner to cover the assault on the apartment. Bertha moved her mighty shoulders under the shiny fabric of her overalls and with one kick took out the lock. And Olga leaned against the wall, letting the cart out for a moment. People very close by were bustling about, doing something important and useful, and the girl was again struck by the feeling of an outsider's gaze. Blinded attention and this time are much more intense. Last time, the blind eye had swept in, like a sauron's eye, in passing, only noting. But now it was aimed squarely at the group, like a searchlight finding a ship in a stormy ocean. It was as if the squad had been marked and tagged.

And the most disgusting thing was that in this world you couldn't dismiss the sensation as an 'imagination...' First you're imagining things, and then a gut with tentacles comes out of nowhere.

Bertha listened to the report, gave a brief order. Crybaby and Sinner, who came out of the apartment, took positions to cover the corridor with fire in both directions. The Priest raised the barrel of the acid cannon vertically and stood to spray anywhere if necessary. The mechanized suspension buzzed at increased speeds. The rest of the fighters took out three doors at once opposite the one already breached. The Holy Man spoke into the radio continuously, like a rapper at a battle, in a hard-to-understand shorthand. For a moment he stepped off the tube, said to Bertha:

"The Madman is worried. Screaming, sobbing."

The Mentor turned her attention to the girl, who clutched at the side of her cart, squirming as if in pain. Bertha put the combi-shotgun to the girl's forehead, leaned lower, peering into Olla's face through the large lenses of the gas mask.

"What?" the Mentor asked in one word.

"The b-baby..." squeezed out the blonde, biting her lip. She went pale as if she'd knocked over a powder puff.

Oh, I had a powder puff at one time, Bertha thought to herself.

I was once beautiful and kind and different...

The Mentor shrugged the uninvited thoughts away, pressed the barrel of the combi-shotgun harder, pressed the stupid fool's head against the wall, pushing the trigger almost to the end. Now all she had to do was press no more than a hair's breadth to leave Olla headless and the Squad without a fighter.

"Talk."

Olga, who still didn't seem to realize how close she was to other world, squeezed through clenched teeth:

"The baby... crying... footprints... on the walls!"

She opened her eyes wide, blinked, and looked in horror at the big gun in Bertha's hands.

"Are you recovered?" The Mentor asked gloomily.

"Y-yes," Olga squeaked out, getting up and grasping the handrail of the cart as a saving point of support.

"Hold steady," advised Bertha. "Everyone cracks at first. That side isn't kidding."

"I-I got it," the girl said in a shaky, faltering voice. And she added more evenly, a little more confidently and firmly. "It will be done. Hold. Stand still."

"Well done. Next time I'll blow your head off."

Smoker came out of apartment three, holding in his outstretched hand a stick like a plunger, stained with something that looked like glowing ink. He held the stick out, and all the squadmates swung to their sides in unison.

"In all the taps," the scout reported. "It drips if you open it."

"People?" The monk asked curtly, gripping the grips of the acid cannon tighter.

"No one."

"Are they left?" The Holy Man asked this time, seemingly not for himself, but by transmitting someone else's question over the walkie-talkie.

"They're gone," Smoker shook his head. Even through the mask, you could see that the scout was perplexed. "No packing, no belongings, the locks closed. They just disappeared. That's all."

Olga shook her humming head. She had told Bertha about the crying baby, but the feeling was much deeper and stranger. Yes, a clear cry, bitter, full of hopeless fear, more like unrelenting terror. Only it sounded... not in her ears. And the girl couldn't explain where the sound was coming from. Maybe it wasn't even a sound. It was as if Despair itself was knocking from the other side of reality, making the individual strings of the universe vibrate. Something about it was familiar... something tugged at the hidden corners of Olga's mind. It seemed to the girl that just a little more, listen even more closely to this crying, and it would become clear who was weeping and why. Who needs help, but dies without hope of support.

"Well, everything seems to be clear here," suggested the Priest, with the silent agreement of the others.

"Warp, heresy, machinations of hostile powers," said Bertha. "Most likely, unholy sorcery. But it could also be a spontaneous breakthrough."

"Don't you talk stupidness," the Priest said quietly, pressing his head against his mentor's respirator. "Witchcraft is never pure," he added louder. "We have to go up to the end, let's see more selectively. Then it's up to the Inquisitors and the Ecclesiarchy.:

"The plumbing system," Kryp put in, softly but confidently, turning to the Holy Man. "Have them pay special attention. If it's filled with this stuff, it might have acted as a volumetric antenna or a mirror. Or maybe a teleporter."

"Copy that," said the radio operator.

"The blockade will not be removed," Bertha affirmed, glancing at Fidus. "High danger, a complete cleanup with the elimination of all property. Let the Inquisition work first, then burn everything out so there's only a box left. Utilities to be completely replaced. Basements to be filled with caustic."

"And a recitation by a team of Preachers, rededicate everything," the monk agreed, then added. "But let's check upstairs first."

"Roger," the Holy Man reported, recounting the radio. "Waiting for the final decision and sanction."

"Disco," Olga whispered, looking at the stick in the scout's hands. He just turned to the doorway and gently threw the filth back, trying not to shake off a drop inadvertently.

"What?" asked Fidus quickly. Sensing the alarm in his master's voice, the servitor stepped from foot to foot, raised his shotgun, cocking his head.

"Disco," Olga repeated. The crying melted into the void, leaving behind a feeling of hopeless emptiness and pangs of sadness.

"And?" Fidus seemed determined to keep up. Bertha was about to slap her, but the Priest stopped her, silently placing a broad palm on her shoulder.

"Well, disco..." Olga was still not thinking clearly and was confused about the words. "There's light and this kind of ink. It looks like very much. They use it for stamps... You can see everything in the blue lights."

She fell silent, trying to describe the simple image of normal disco, glowing ink and stamps on the hands in words understandable to people of the future.

Bertha understood first, seemingly even faster than Fidus, but it was the Priest who started the action. The big man in the chainmail released the spray gun, which the iron paw of the pendant automatically returned to its marching position with the barrel up. Then he tore the book from his belt and the mask from his face. The Priest raised the bible above his head and shouted in a completely inhuman voice so that Olga almost went deaf:

"In His name, I reveal which is hidden!"

The holy father was frightening to look at. He rolled his eyes so that only the whites were visible, pink with bursting vessels, his lips were quivering, the foam was forming at the corners of his mouth. The black-gloved fingers he had clenched on the book twisted like bird's claws, and the wooden binding cracked and cracked. It looked more like a momentary attack of madness than anything else, a real one that was ugly and very scary.

"According to His will, let us see the unclean!" the monk bellowed. "Let us not fear evil, for He is watching with our eyes now!"

"My God," someone whispered, maybe a Holy Man, maybe a Crybaby.

"Run," Savlar muttered, gritting his teeth so that the laryngophone transmitted a sound like a frequent drum roll. "Let's get out of here..."

The walkie-talkie behind the Holy Man's shoulders shrieked like a living thing, threw off a beam of bright blue sparks, and the receiver roared and squealed with interference. The ether seemed to die down quickly, drowning in an ocean of sudden interference.

On the walls, on the ceiling, on the tiled floor, luminous symbols were slowly appearing, painted with the same paint that had stained Smoker's plunger. It was as if reality was melting away, revealing what was hidden in other layers of the universe. Very intricate patterns, woven from bizarre rune-like signs. They clung with angular little squiggles, twisted in spirals as if they were meant to catch any, even the most cursory glance, and not let it out, to confuse it and send it into an endless web.

The whole house is painted, Olga realized, the whole fucking building is painted on the inside to look like a sorcerer's hohloma...

"The labyrinth," whispered someone, maybe the Wretched Man.

"No, it's the Gates of Empyrea," Fidus Kryptman said quickly and clearly, like a report. "They pulled out all the inhabitants at once. It's a ritual. A sacrifice. And the sorcery is still working."

The priest collapsed to his knees, clinging to the bible as the greatest value in the world, as the only lifeline that could keep his soul safe. And Bertha snatched the walkie-talkie from the HolyMan's hands and shouted no more quietly than the monk, trying to break through the roar of interference:

"Radial! Radial! Rocket Strike! Blast the whole block off!!!"

The Savlar shrieked thinly, the Holy Man shouted 'fuck evil!', the Crybaby sobbed in his voice, gasping for breath. The Priest wheezed and sobbed like a man who had lost his voice. Olga sat upright on the cold floor, unable to feel her feet. Servitor Luct towered over her like a self-propelled combat tower, evidently, Kryp had made it a priority to protect the girl.

Bertha looked around wildly and finished almost pleadingly:

"Destroy it all!!!"

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