Готовый перевод Житие Мое / Life of Mine: Глава 3

Chapter 3

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The next working day on my schedule started in the morning. I arrived ten minutes in advance just to see who was being greeted. Crap! All the firm's employees were present (according to my information, as I was not officially represented), but no work was being done anyway. The atmosphere was mournful. Everyone was suffering in silence.

Did their cat die or something?

On closer inspection, I was the only one who looked more or less decent. I mean, without the bubbles on my knees, the fringe on the lapels, the pseudo-artistic patches, and the "macaroni factory explosion" hairdo. Naturally, this put me in opposition to the staff, and they immediately tried to put me down. The red-haired assistant, a relative of Quarter, brought me a perfectly cold coffee, and I hurled a warming curse into the cup almost without looking. No one else had the urge to make jokes.

No one made any attempt to get acquainted either. Well, let's just say that I could identify Johan simply because there was only one white mage. The man in the leather trousers and the younger guy with the bright red hair looked like Karl the alchemist (his last name was either Fartsing or Ferting; I'll have to look it up in some official paper) and his assistant, and the chubby little guy who was nestled closer to the coffee machine looked a lot like an accountant. Boss Polak and the secretaries needed no introduction.

I could easily imagine a depressed white mage, but how it was possible to stun seven people at once was a mystery. If all my future employers were like that, I'd better get back to the garage to fix motorbikes. It is a very profitable occupation! But as I had taken money for the same job twice, family honor demanded that I should solve the problem. Tangor sounds proud, and one can only lose one's reputation once.

I pretended to be an emotionally dumb black brat and went to my boss to find out if I'd done everything right yesterday. I got paid for something, didn't I? Polak looked at me mournfully, but I was deaf to his suffering. I had to make up the next assignment myself:

"Perhaps I should familiarise myself with the concept of a particular node and focus on it? Or take the unit as a whole?"

"I'm not sure you'll understand the scheme..."

I smiled politely:

"Combining alchemy and magic is my trademark!" At least, black magic.

He looked around the tables once more at a loss, and I began to understand:

"Perhaps your drawings are not systematized? I could do with that. The system helps a lot with the work!"

He perked up a bit, nodded, and suggested I organize the documentation in chronological order. Unfortunately, almost none of the drawings had a date of creation, so I had to use archaeological techniques to describe the papers layer by layer. From time to time, I tried to get advice from both Polak and Karl, eventually bugging the hell out of both of them. Polak deserted first, followed by the others, and by lunchtime, I was the only other person in the office apart from the secretaries. That got me down.

"What's the matter, girls? Or is it always like this with them?"

Quarter's relative rolled her eyes, delighted at the opportunity to show her awareness:

"It's after yesterday!"

"Don't keep me in suspense! What happened yesterday?"

"Tests," the brunette intervened and snorted: "Another one!"

That explained a little bit of what was going on.

"And how it's going?"

"As usually!"

Which means nothing. One could have guessed that.

During the day, I managed to go through hardly a third of the papers and to get to know the subject of the work, at best. Polak words about "you can't understand the scheme" were wrong! Machine drawings are made according to a single pattern, otherwise, they simply can't be used to make anything. And it makes absolutely no difference from the alchemical point of view what to fill the tank with - beer or sewage. As far as I understood, they were trying to implement a complex non-linear control mechanism through a set of perforated drums, which the machine had to access at a certain combination of input parameters (as if through a set of locks).

The idea was beautiful, but for some reason, it didn't work. And it was not certain that I could figure out why! There were at least two variants of varying degrees of complexity in the stacks of papers, and, judging by the contents of the table, the perforation schemes were designed by the white mage, Johan. I'm not saying he acted wrongly, I mean that he was guided by the logic of the magical process, and the consequences of this were very well illustrated by the example of my motorcycle. It gave me hope that the problem could be solved with a little blood, but who knows...

The next time I came to work, I found Johan drunk as a skunk.

Everyone sat there pretending that nothing had happened. I tried to blend in, but it was beyond me.

Do they have any idea what's going on?! Okay, there weren't many blacks in Redstone, and the university people didn't talk much to the locals. But a white one! There must be a lot of them around here! Am I the only one who understands how this is going to end!!!

A white mage who goes on a binge doesn't usually come out of it alive. Well, unless you have to resort to forced hospitalization. Their psyche is, you see, fragile and not adapted to the hardships of life. Having failed to cope with a nervous shock once and having reached the chemical relaxant, the white one will pour wine over and over again, and each time the strength to solve the problem will be less and less, and after all, the physical state of the mage is directly related to the mental one...

Maybe it's just to the firm's advantage that the developer dies? No, it's too much...

But a man has to be saved, no kidding!

I drove the secretaries away and brewed a killer pot of coffee, so I went to bring the nose-slobbering sufferer to his senses. I took his hand and put a cup in it. Of course, I had no yolk and pepper on hand, but I poured so much lemon into it that it made my eyes water.

"Drink, drink! We must, we must drink."

Whites react differently to physical contact - touching puts them in an intimate mood and makes them want to confide. Given that intoxication increases suggestibility, one hopes that he will do as I say.

"In one gulp, oops!"

He took a gulp, and he shuddered excruciatingly. Good effect! I continued to hold his hand while looking into his eyes (also very helpful):

"Buddy, you need to go home! Get a good night's rest; you'll need your strength tomorrow. You'll be fine, I promise! We need your help. You can do it! Shall I walk you home?"

He shook his head drunkenly, got up, and headed for the exit - usually, white ones get brainwashed before their bodies can get poisoned. I hope he can pull himself together because I'm not his mommy, and I can't send him to the doctor.

After Johan's departure, the average mood in the office jumped two degrees. Probably no one dared to discuss failure in the presence of the poor guy. After waiting five minutes to be sure, Polak clapped his hands loudly:

"Why don't we have a five-minute coffee break?"

The staff members perked up and squeaked their chairs. I put a stop to the attempt to settle down on the blueprints, so everyone gathered around the secretaries' table, forcing the disgruntled girls out of there. There was not only coffee on the table, but cookies, salted peanuts, and even a bottle of brandy, with which I diluted the coffee one to two.

"I won't hide it, friends," Polak began, "that what has happened was a great blow to us. But all is not yet lost! Who has any thoughts on the reasons for the latest failure?"

There was a depressed silence at the table.

"Be brave, my friends, be brave!"

"You can't combine magic with alchemy," Carl said firmly.

"Why is that?" A sip of the homemade liquor made me want to socialize.

The alchemist glared angrily:

"Because these areas are not connected in any way!"

"I raised my finger meaningfully:"

"They interact through the material world! The main thing is to find common ground."

"Common ground? In a shit tank?"

"What's wrong with a shit tank, alchemically speaking?"

"The fact that it doesn't work!"

I patted myself on the chest:

"I have a patent. A magical device on alchemical, and it works perfectly! Although, at first, it was a bit of a dope." Should I bring them my bike?

But Karl didn't want to hear about my successes:

"What do you think we should do?"

"Usually the problem can be solved by breaking the system apart," I shrugged.

At least I solved one problem that way.

"What parts?" Carl grumbled irritably.

I shrugged again:

"I'll tell you when I've studied the process!"

"Really, Carl," Polak interceded, "let the boy look into the matter further!"

Anybody else I would have punched in the face for "the boy", but here it was the boss. I had to smile.

The alchemist turned away proudly - he chose to ignore me. To hell with him! Quarter's relative poured brandy into my cup as an encouragement (the girls certainly didn't like the man). The conversation turned to non-serious topics: attending the spring festival and organizing a field trip. I watched and listened and understood why Ron was trying so hard to get me into this group. Kindergarten, strappy trousers! Literally strappy.

"Why aren't you working as a mage?" The brunette cautiously stepped up, deciding that two cups of brandy were enough for me.

I gave a warm, fatherly, and slightly smug smile:

"One does not preclude the other, baby!"

She pouted very sweetly and tried to sit on my lap.

The next day, Polak sent me on a "business trip" to the customer's company. Well, you know where. It was only afterward I admit that I realized what had caused all the employees such a severe shock.

It is very difficult to give an adequate description of what a sewage factory is like. It's not that I didn't know how it works before, but little stinking tubes don't give you any idea of the workings of a system capable of processing the waste of an entire city. Black magicians don't like this sort of thing, but I was impressed by the scale. There were rows of giant pumps, pipes as tall as me, ladders and tankers full of thermometers, and an emergency exhaust light constantly dancing over the pipe (guess what's burning!).

The attitude was unfriendly. I confess I didn't immediately realize why.

"What, again Biokin?" the manager grimaced.

"Yes," I confessed timidly.

"About what happened on the third day?"

"Right."

He didn't bother with me and handed me over to the shift foreman.

"Who are you?" The workman squinted suspiciously.

Introducing myself as a new employee in such an environment seemed unreasonable to me.

"An independent auditor!" I'm flexing my chest in a cartwheel. "The investors want to find out the feasibility of placing the funds."

"It's about time... Office rats!" the worker expressively expressed his point of view.

"How about you help me figure this out, and you won't be bothered by these smartasses again?"

//Because they are about to be kicked out with a dust broom," I added to myself.

We shook hands, and the staff became much kinder to me.

It quickly became clear that our office was working on a prototype of a control unit for a fermenting vat - the main production unit of the factory. This unit was fed with filtered and shaken sewage, and the output was luminous gas and a resinous substance, which served as a raw material for all sorts of interesting processes. And lots and lots of water.

The crux of the problem was that the super-productive bacteria bred with white magic were extremely sensitive to the composition of the... ahem... nutrient material. Much, much more sensitive than the unpretentious wild strains! Should the workers, invisible to mere eyes, get too hot or too cold, they would lose activity, and the block would have to be stopped. And cleaned. My visit to the factory coincided with just such an event, and I'll tell you what: a hundred-year-old Ghoul is a walking scented candle by comparison. The situation was made all the more piquant by the fact that the raw materials had to be poured into a sump during cleaning, and that was no golden rain, either.

Even organizing one such event could get you killed. And if Biokin arranged it at least twice... The master's sincere hatred made more sense to me. I desperately did not want to go back to the factory again, but my intuition told me that the solution to the problem could only be found here. There was something about these advanced bacteria that made their use a quiet diversion. If I wanted to work off the Quarter's money, that was the factor I had to find.

Still, nothing takes your mind off bad thoughts like hard creative work! The object of the work is irrelevant. In a few days, I had forgotten all about the past few months, as if the whole black magic thing had nothing to do with me.

Not surprisingly, when I saw the chief of Redstone's NZAMIPS waiting for me at the university gate, I didn't keep my eyes on him for a moment. Especially since Captain Behr was in civilian clothes. Maybe he's waiting for a girl here!

However, the captain (I was told after our meeting at the Oblation that his underground nickname was Steamtrain, in the sense of blunt, straight and on the rails chuh-chuh) had other plans for this. As I neared him, he hissed:

"Hey! Slow down."

I slowed my pace and made a disgruntled face:

"Any questions, sir?"

"We have to talk."

He led me into a half-dark café and sat me down at the far table. I didn't mind. I didn't want to be seen with him. Then there would be a lot of gossips.

"I want to re-record your crystal."

I guess my eyes must have become 50 cents each.

"Why?"

Because I can replace it without any problem, but I'll get my head kicked off for losing it.

"I didn't get it!" I honestly confessed.

The policeman grimaced irritably:

So, that's it. Watch this! My boss changed recently. I worked with my old boss for fifteen years, and of course, I made a lot of concessions to him and did all sorts of favors. But God forbid I should trust a black one. I know your kin's nature very well. He personally took care of the case of your breakthrough and said that the channel is stable and there is no reason to panic. I did not object - it is not customary to argue with the boss. If I had called a commission to examine it, both you and I would have been in trouble, and the conclusion would have been the same. Now it's different - he's no longer my boss, and I can't use his word. Well, I've been thinking about it, and I realized I was a fool to trust a black mage. It's just that you guys have a different way of thinking. You can't take other people's interests into account.

"Why? We can," I sulked.

"Not that case," the captain brushed it aside. "Anyway, we've got the whole office looking for a doer, looking through the records, going everywhere. So your crystal will be seen by the new boss sooner or later, but it's better if the record of the breakthrough is not in it. Do you understand your interest?"

I realized, quite clearly, that the chief of Redstone's NZAMIPS was asking me to collude. And he needed it more than I did!

"I don't agree for nothing."

"And what do you want?" Steamtrain grumbled unfriendlily.

"I want to know everything!" I quipped.

"You'll die early," he bade me.

I shrugged:

"Anything is possible. But you won't give me any money, and the most valuable thing after money is information. I'll make a deal: you give me a comprehensive answer to an interesting question, we'll record a new crystal, and you'll give me the old one."

"Kha!"

"Oh, come on! You don't think I'm going to blackmail you, knowing what I'm risking, do you?"

"What do you need it for?"

"Are you kidding? It's my real Acquisition!"

He was quiet for a minute, looking at me with an absent look. I never would have guessed that a man with his looks could be intelligent. I'll know now.

"Agreed," the captain decided. "The crystal has no number, so once it's out of the vault, there's no way of telling where it was recorded. But you wouldn't be able to pass it off as someone else's either because the name is stamped on it before the recording has even begun."

"I hadn't even thought of that!" I reassured him.

"Come to the office tomorrow. There's a summons for you."

The timing was right: he had obviously studied my class schedule.

"I will." I tucked the summons into my pocket and suddenly wondered, "What do you think of zombies?"

"He fixed his eyes on me with a heavy stare."

"I was just asking a theoretical question!"

"Fuck such a theory!" he threatened. "I'll keep my eye on you, you fucking fantasist!"

Why did he get so nervous? I need a dog to be placed somewhere.

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