Готовый перевод Житие Мое / Life of Mine: Глава 2

Chapter 2

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The inspectors from the capital arrived, just as Mr. Satal had predicted, but Steam Engine was not afraid of them. His office was like a store window - transparent and shiny. You can look, but you can't touch. The stern auditors faced perfect accounting, friendly clerks, a guard in polished uniforms, and an almost complete absence of rank-and-file employees. It could not be helped. Everyone was on assignment - there was no shortage of things to do!

Never before have so many operatives received a vacation at the beginning of summer...

Steamtrain was not fooling itself. If the inspectors set out to investigate him, they could always find or invent a reason. Another thing was that this reason would not be enough for a full-fledged internal investigation, at most a reprimand or a record of incompetence. It was also unpleasant but familiar. No one could pin the blame on him for the appearance of a banned potion on the market.

Judging by the displeasure with which the auditors studied the results of the investigation, they were well aware of this. The case of the dragon's tears had already been taken to court. Miss Keweenahari had tipped the captain off, and the lab had been swiftly shut down. However, the organizer of this outrage escaped and, according to Steamtrain, died quietly somewhere. Such blunders are not forgivable to anyone. The NZAMIPS investigators had two white mages drugged up to the top and several small scums distributing poison under the guise of a stimulant. The question of how the criminals got the recipe for the most dangerous potion, Captain Ber, without regret, addressed to the capital authorities - it was beyond his competence. The wanted fiend had moved to Redstone from the East Coast only a year ago, so they'd better find out what he was doing there.

The senior regional coordinator defiantly left town for the duration of the commission, but when he returned, he turned out to be shockingly well-informed about everything that had happened.

"You got off easy," Mr. Satal briefly summarized the result. "I was informed that they had a direct order to remove the leadership of the Redstone branch, but no one was willing to take your place. So don't take this as encouragement. The Black Knight still hangs over us, and no empath can predict what he might do once he's out of action.

"I don't think he'll do anything," the captain said thoughtfully. "He's got a new source of income now. Why should he risk it?"

The black mage somehow looked very badly at the captain, and Steamtrain wished he were wearing a suit of the highest protection.

"Talk, you bastard, who is it?"

"Uh... one student, I think. I warn you. I have no evidence!"

"Whatever! But is it for sure?"

The captain shrugged:

"He has an unstandard channel. He's been busted for illegal practice. For three years, he lived in a dormitory for fifty a semester. Now he rents not even a room - an apartment, and his suits are such that I have to work for at least a month on any of them. Originally from Krowhard. At the beginning of the year, he bought a black motorcycle at the Plaza."

He did not mention the incident with the crystal, nor did he mention that he only began to make inquiries after he saw what he had turned into, a ragged-looking kid who was willing to chase the housekeepers for twenty crowns a piece.

"Mm..." Mr. Satal blissfully squeezed his eyes shut. "Introduce me!"

"What for?" Steamtrain became suspicious.

"I want to look into his eyes." The senior coordinator fidgeted in his chair. "Don't you get it? He's a genius! A natural. Forty-four episodes, no backup, not a single misfire. Normal mages don't do that. It's like a second Tangor, you know!"

"Tangor?" the captain tensed up.

"There was such a coordinator about twenty years ago. They told us a lot about him in the course... um... He also served here."

So that's why the student's name seemed so familiar to him! Steamtrain strained his memory:

"Toder Tangor?"

"Right. How do you know?"

"We served together. I was already a lieutenant then."

Captain Ber somehow belatedly realized that he was almost twice the age of his energetic chief, and the question of seniority is a sore subject for blacks. But it carried through.

Mr. Satal raised his finger meaningfully:

"He was a genius, too!"

"Too bad he didn't end well."

"And because of his own." The coordinator's face suddenly hardened. "But it won't happen to me!"

The captain was politely silent. We all have our own things on our minds! In fact, isn't Ber himself delusional about elite conspiracies? They're all from the same office, and their long service in NZAMIPS weighs on the brain.

"By the way, the student's name is Tangor. Do you think he's a relative?"

"The Tangors are all related, but close is unlikely. That coordinator lived in Fincawn."

Steamtrain inhaled... and exhaled - he didn't have the courage to tell the coordinator about the overwritten crystal.

"What?" Mr. Satal squinted suspiciously.

And after that, someone says that black ones don't understand anything about people!

"Doesn't all this surprise you?" Steamtrain blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I mean, the cleaners, the ghouls, the dragon's tears, all in one place after ten years of silence? Mind you, I've signaled about Grokk's shit more than once, but there's been no reaction to it. It's like it's just the way it is. Fuck the dead guy! I've got all the cells full of scum right now. And what's interesting is that half of them were newcomers. Used to live their lives and then about a year ago, they got the nerve to go to Redstone. It's like a festival! Maybe I missed the poster."

Senior Coordinator frowned thoughtfully and folded his arms in a Gendo gesture.

"There is an opinion," he began cautiously, "that some of the events taking place show traces of planning."

Who would have doubted it!

"Foreigners?"

"No, our own."

"And what do they hope to get out of it?" the captain was interested.

Mr. Satal shrugged:

"Power. Money. Satisfaction of baser instincts. What else is there to gain by fishing in troubled waters? I don't know if you follow politics," Steamtrain chuckled understandingly, "but proposals to improve the social structure of the Ingernika come regularly."

"Can't we just kick these smart guys in the head?"

"Unfortunately, different people are involved in proposing ideas and implementing them. And so far, no one has been able to prove the connection between them. In addition, an attempt to prohibit discussions would be a violation of the principles of that very system. It remains to educate and suppress attempts at destructive activity."

What the hell is "trying"!

"Don't you think that letting them live in the freedom is kind of... creepy?"

"The risk is inevitable, but society must prove its legitimacy continuously, whether it wants to or not."

Black one spoke of the problem as if he were reading from a piece of paper, calmly and distractedly, which was probably how he perceived it. Steamtrain was an ordinary man and did not know how to act that way. What do children whose lives are mangled by bigoted parents do? Accidental witnesses, innocently injured? How many of Nintark's forty-thousand population really wanted to participate in a large-scale magical experiment?

The coordinator noticed the shadow on his subordinate's face and nodded:

There will be casualties. But the attempt to avoid casualties at all costs is exactly what distinguishes our opponents. You know the result of this. We have to make sure that the casualty lists are limited to members of the at-risk group.

But who will be part of it? The other day another relative came to see Steamtrain, who had promised to show her children the zoo in the summer. The little niece (a cousin, or maybe a third cousin, on her mother's sister's husband's side) was telling her uncle that the Black Knight had come to their town in winter, kicked a ghost out of the town hall, and rode the boys on a motorcycle twice around the church. The captain checked the reports of the incident and realized that he might well never have seen this relative of his. And it would have been Grokk's fault, and indirectly through him, the one who had carefully orchestrated the chaos in Redstone County to achieve his murky ends. So no matter what the black mage said about historical necessity, Steamtrain hoped to find the scoundrel and destroy him, no matter how legitimate it looked.

And God knows it would greatly improve the social fabric.

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Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/85505/550471

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP