My Path to Magic

Chapter 12

“I’m a good-hearted dark mage, I’m a very modest dark mage, I am very, very…”

Should I stay quiet after what happened at the farm, or behave like everyone else? Don’t get me wrong—I am, of course, very intelligent—but acting is not my element. I could convincingly simulate simple and natural reactions, but a sophisticated reconstruction of behavior was not my milieu. That was more up the white magicians’ alley. How could I behave myself if I didn’t know what would be best in my situation?

The question was relevant, because Redstone buzzed like a disturbed beehive. I did not think that a couple episodes of my half-illegal business would make so much noise. Interestingly enough, the townsfolk’s reaction to that matter was diametrically opposed to the official view. Apparently, people did not support the authorities. I could imagine how irritated NZAMIPS’ officials were! I was praised, I was recommended as a role model, I was admired and, you know, the dark are suckers for flattery. For obvious reasons, the mage remained anonymous, but I knew whom they were talking about. The only thing that kept me from running through the streets shouting, “That knight is me! Me!” was the zombie-dog. Such a trick no one would forgive.

University classes turned into a real test for my nerves: Quarters looked at me with a sly eye (what on earth made me show him my motorcycle?), and whenever at least three dark got together, they immediately began discussing “that same incident”. Nothing agitates the dark as much as another’s glory! All of my fellow students were confident that they would have done “the same”, but better. One twit even tried to move from word to deed, and Mr. Rakshat beat him so seriously that the guy had to go to the hospital. Any other measures wouldn’t discourage the dark; therefore, the teacher’s over-reaction was considered adequate. It was clear even to the white.

Due to such cases the university offered a lecture - a review of supernatural phenomena, mandatory for all dark mages. The ones who did not attend would not be allowed to take final exams. The lecturer, sent by NZAMIPS, was a lady of colorless appearance, shy and embarrassed, who told us about the history of the scientific study of otherworldly powers, uttering phrases like “lethal” and “witnesses did not survive” with a slight stammer. The officer vitalized only when she started a demonstration of heinous exhibits, spreading the disgusting stink of formalin throughout the entire room.

And I saw some of these exhibits without any formalin…

After the lecture it became clear to everyone—even to me—that the accomplishment of the feats, overblown by the media, could only be done by a well-trained otherworldly liquidator, a retired “cleaner”, or an aged master looking for a meaningful death. I didn’t understand why I was still alive. Logic dictated that either I embodied the Spirit of Holy Salem or the lady-lecturer slightly distorted the truth.

Since childhood I have been catching hints well, but my case did not require special subtleties: I ought to put a big, bold cross on my underground business. That was, perhaps, for the better: how much longer could I risk my life? Yes, I still owed money for the motorcycle (five hundred crowns) and needed to help my family. I could not leave them without money—Lyuchik was going to a new school. In a pinch, I could sell some stuff; the business suit was worth no less than a hundred crowns.

It was time to get more serious about my life—in the next month I would be twenty-one. No more allowances for non-age. At this stage, good students looked to make contacts with future employers and earn work experience instead of riding a motorcycle around the county with a magic gripsack at the ready. It was time to decide which was closer to my soul: magic or alchemy. Mr. Darkon was right: the majority of initiated dark mages chose the career of a combat mage (it was always easier to earn a living with one’s hands, not one’s brains), but I tested it and discovered that the job of a “cleaner” was rather monotonous. To my chagrin, I did not have any employer in sight for a career in alchemy.

What about Quarters?

“Hey Ron, how is our patent doing?” I asked my friend.

“Excellent! If Dad doesn’t show a bit of generosity, I’ll sell your invention to Domgari Motors. Old hags still think that a student is a sort of free slave. Don’t piss! You will be rich.”

“What do you think: can I mention the patent in my resume?”

“You aren’t going to be an alchemist, are you?”

“I have always been planning to become an alchemist.”

“Weren’t you going to learn magic?”

“So what?”

Quarters shrugged and immediately perked up: “How about making some money?”

“Don’t even ask!”

“I’ve got some friends,” Quarters hesitated. “In short, they started a business…”

“Do they need a draftsman?”

“They need brains! Oh, and a draftsman too. They’ve signed a big contract: the optimization of gas generators.”

“Shit tanks, you mean?”

Ron chuckled: “Tom, you have no idea what dough swirls in this business! Do you know how much shit this town produces a day?”

I snorted. Wow, what a start to my life! Though, why not?

“What are the terms?”

“You’ll like them.”

Of course, compared to the income of a dark magician, it was no money at all, but I certainly couldn’t become too choosy. From a student’s perspective, everything looked damn attractive, and from the point of view of a wanted criminal, the job was excellent camouflage. Ron shared a common belief that alchemy was not the place for an initiated dark mage.

Edan Satal’s career as the senior coordinator of the Northwestern Region began with resounding failure and public humiliation. The excuse that it took some time to gain full control of the situation was poor consolation. Had Satal caught the ill-starred mage in the heat of the moment, tortures and a murder would have been added to the other sins of the coordinator. But the hero of Satal’s humiliation was wisely hiding somewhere.

Care for the mental health of decision makers was the direct responsibility of empaths in the public service. Ms. Kevinahari was confident that, whatever passions boiled in the soul of the dark magician, two or three weeks of hard work would melt them in dry pragmatism. If nothing else happened. So far, the only side effect of the scandal was the transfer of the regional NZAMIPS’ office from Gerdana to Redstone.

Ms. Kevinahari presented an investigatory report on the Fitsroten Estate to the coordinator personally: “In some sense, we have been lucky this time—he drew a pentagram on the ground. But some… dog… dug all around and even peed all over. Having examined… this, our best expert… I don’t even know such words! In short, he came to a conclusion: the power channel of our mage is nonstandard. That’s it.”

“Perhaps, I’d better speak to the expert myself?”

“No, no! You would kill each other. Seriously.”

Mr. Satal kept silence, and even the empath could not say whether the coordinator thought of the emerging issue or cherished his annoyance.

“Would you like me to communicate the results to Captain Baer?” Ms. Kevinahari disturbed the quiescence.

“No!” the coordinator startled.

The empath refrained from commenting, but Mr. Satal sensed some disagreement (or his teamwork skills improved) and found it necessary to explain: “Weren’t you surprised that he switched transportation methods at exactly the time that we set up the ambush at the railroad station?”

“Yes, I was,” Ms. Kevinahari admitted. “Prior to that, he used trains so often that conductors thought up a nickname for him. But Captain Baer is not a traitor, that’s for sure!”

“I didn’t mean him. Lots of people work in his office. I want to close all channels that information could leak from.”

The empath reluctantly nodded, admitting that he was right, and immediately livened up: “Do you think that our mage has a support group?”

“Rather, a nonsupport group,” Mr. Satal grimaced. “Talks of the Artisans started again in some circles, meaning there will be sacrifices. But I am not Larkes! I’ll be sentimental with no one. If they stick out, they will pay dearly for that!”

Ms. Kevinahari conciliatorily shook her head: “The rrebirth of the sect requires a certain incubation period, if there is still anybody left. Or do you think the incident at the estate was their work?”

“You mean Grokk?” the coordinator raised eyebrow. “Nonsense! The old knucklehead ran in the ghouls’ jaws to cover up his wrongdoing. When he was in charge, seven (that we know about) were lost in that place. He had to prove to everybody that the danger was exaggerated.”

His brief analysis perfectly complemented the image of a fattened and brazen dark magician, who was introduced to Ms. Kevinahari as the chief of Redstone County’s Division for the Liquidation of Supernatural Phenomena.

“Perhaps I should try to establish connections with the local white,” the empath decided. “Also, I need information about Redstone’s artisans, if they were here.”

“Tell my secretary to prepare a request; I’ll sign it…” the coordinator suddenly faltered. “There is one more thing, Ms. Kevinahari…”

“Rona…Rona, for short,” the empath smiled.

“Oh?… Thanks! Then… I am just Dan.”

Rona Kevinahari smiled at him and left the senior regional coordinator’s office that was temporarily stationed in the Redstone division of NZAMIPS.

That day they took an important step forward: the move to informal communication meant that Satal no longer perceived her as a suspicious spy. Trust has been established! Perhaps the higher-ups weren’t mistaken on the new coordinator, for a change. The dark could control himself, he was easily appeased, he was ready to adapt to teamwork, and his excessive aggressiveness in the current situation was more of a bonus than a disadvantage. She needed to reflect this in her report!

In the hallway, Ms. Kevinahari exchanged bows with Captain Baer, ​​noting that the chief of Redstone’s NZAMIPS looked particularly melancholic (no doubt he was hiding something), and hurried to the door—she was going to visit the university and give two review lectures today.

Locomotive followed the empath with an indifferent glance. When he was told that the regional coordinator would occupy his office, the captain could not believe his ears at first. Was the complex of buildings, taken away from Grokk’s “cleaners”, too small for the coordinator? It had so much room—you could let a rail line run through. Alas! The captain had to reshuffle and condense his staff in a smaller space, because the senior coordinator wanted to take over Baer’s office, and the captain was forced to move to the former accounting room. In a sense, the idea proved not to be so bad: women-bookkeepers started aggressively courting the single man, and some of them were such beauties that o-ho-ho! But losing his office pained Baer anyway!

On the other hand, the authorization of documents happened at a phenomenal rate now, as in the approval of increased funding for intelligence work at the university. Locomotive was not sure if the coordinator took his arguments seriously, but the logic was compelling, and Satal did not risk arguing about it. It was easier for him just to give the money.

The unlicensed dark mage was not found yet. The captain agreed that such a successful otherworldly liquidator was unlikely to be a novice. Unlikely, but not totally improbable. First, according to the assurance of his own experts, the unknown magician used a single spell, the Fire Seal, in all cases. It would be hard to find a simpler curse, but what a great effect he had achieved. Second, all of Redstone’s magicians minimally suiting the description of the Knight had already been checked. Oh, and third, what mage in his right mind, apart from a student, would agree to stake his life for money?

“A novice,” the captain confidentially whispered to the coordinator.

“A student?” the coordinator winced with displeasure, trying to dodge off the bulky body of Locomotive. “With such skills? Three ghouls simultaneously, practically with his bare hands, improvising as easily as scratching his foot’s heel! It’s a shame to admit, but I don’t know any combat mage so powerful.”

“A gifted student!” Locomotive hung over the dark mage as a big warm cloud.

And Mr. Satal surrendered: “Okay. Talk to the faculty members whether they have a young genius in mind.”

“A genius with money.”

“Right. If we don’t catch him red-handed, then at least we will watch him. We’ll need to recruit this kid.”

To recruit! First, they needed to find him. The intuition of the experienced police operative hinted that they would have a good run to accomplish the task. Captain Baer wandered around the office with a businesslike appearance and without a specific purpose, but not because of thoughts about the Dark Knight. He was not a magician (and did not possess any Source), but years of service and life woes taught him to perceive approaching troubles, even when the others found only occasion for fun. Now Locomotive was haunted by a feeling that the situation had acquired an irregular shape.

Thinking logically, events in the county were supposed to undermine the reputation of NZAMIPS and dark mages in one fell swoop. All preconditions for disaster were present: a dismissed team of “cleaners” headed by the fat idiot, long-time ignorance by the central office (perhaps too long) of the activities of the Redstone division, the novice coordinator, not knowing yet how to put two and two together, and the mass media—always waiting for a scandal. The situation bore distinct traces of serious planning, and here an adventurous unlicensed mage emerged on the scene, walked over some sore spots, fixed them in passing, and transformed a minus into a plus. And the worst was that the former coordinator Larkes definitely played some role in this. Captain Baer felt the upcoming troubles in his gut, though he could not rule out the possibility that it was all about him changing the room.

Chapter 13

I never had a chance to work in a team, except for the expedition to the King’s Island. The future belongs to large research institutions and corporations; the time when alchemists worked alone in garages has forever gone (my motorcycle is a different story). Therefore, I had to learn how to get along with co-workers or become so brilliant that I would be forgiven for anything.

Overwhelmed by those thoughts, I bought a penny-worth pamphlet titled The Business Etiquette from a hawker’s tray, read it, and realized that it was written by a well-wisher whose intent was to help prostitutes reach the level of a secretary. A more useless idea was to ask Quarters’ advice. No, he would have answered, but god forbid I follow his recommendation!

It would have been easier if the employer had interviewed me; we would have looked at each other and understood who was worth what. But Ron conveyed that Mr. Polak preferred to test me in action. Did he think, ‘Every dark is the same?’ Or was it our patent that impressed him? On the other hand, they offered so little money during the probation period that it wouldn’t matter who was at the drawing board; even with a monkey they would not lose much.

The situation was kind of confusing to me. I could have guessed then what was the matter, but, as a naive student, I wasn’t versed in business.

And then the day came: the first day of my grown-up life.

I went to work in a business suit (in my opinion, I had to be dressed up), though I didn’t put a tie on; I was fed up with neckties. The bureau occupied the third floor of a cheap office building. A dusty sign on the door declared “BioKin”. That name did not shout association with alchemy. Behind the doors there was a huge hall. Two drawing boards, pushed into the far corner, and desks with rolls of drawing paper on top of neighboring thick folders hinted at the creative process that was taking place there. A boy in uniform and two girls (I immediately recalled The Business Etiquette) were having coffee at the only unloaded desk. One of the two was red-haired and giggling cutely; the other, a searing brunette, flashed her astounding blue eyes from under long bangs. Not without regret I interrupted their fun: “Where can I find Mr. Polak?”

The redhead pointed her finger at the distal end of the hall, where the deposits of folders and drawings were particularly high. I confess, I did not notice a man behind them. He did not see or hear me, but not because he was busy with work: Mr. Polak was sweetly napping with his head on a pillow of folders and his legs stretched into the aisle.

“Hello!” I called gently.

He started, looking around with bleary eyes. I waited patiently until his face took on a meaningful expression.

“You booked an appointment with me at three p.m.”

“Is that so? Oh… of course! Mr. Tangor?”

I suspected this guy wouldn’t be able to pronounce the word “mister” twice in a row. Not because he woke up two seconds ago. Bewildered, I looked at the man who was steering the whole company: he wore a plaid farmer shirt and overalls, like a handyman from a farmyard. (If not for the quality of the fabric, I would have thought that he had just come out of there). On top of it all, a brilliant earring gleamed in his ear.

And then the revelation hit me that my first boss was a classic, double-dyed representative of the nerds. Shit!

“You can call me Thomas for short.”

He smiled radiantly and introduced himself: “Geoff. Would you like coffee?”

“Thanks…”

“Girls, girls! Coffee!”

I tried to avoid stimulants in the afternoon, but it was impossible to get Geoff off of the idea. The courier quietly disappeared; the secretaries stopped giggling and started intently rattling the dishes.

“By the way, you don’t have to dress up. Our company has adopted a casual style,” he pulled a strap off of his overalls.

Okay, he might think of me as a hick, but I would not allow myself to wear such junk on the streets, except maybe to use as work clothes on the job. But they could make me look like I had an attitude, not to mention that there were no lockers or places for a clothes change.

I forced a smile, feverishly looking for a way to turn his offer down.

“I understand, Geoff,” I looked down, pulling on the lapel of my jacket. “But this is a gift from my Mommy!”

Knockout! He could not dispute that argument and tried to hide his embarrassment under a business-like tone: “Do you already know what our company develops?” That was Mr. Polak’s first question.

“Equipment for sewage factories?” I ventured to suggest.

“Not only that, not only that!” he jumped up in indignation. “The application of modified micro-organisms will open up a new era in the progress of civilization!”

And Mr. Polak poured down on me streams of strategic information about market conditions and future developments in this field.

I desperately tried to extract the nitty-gritty about the firm and my future responsibilities from the torrent of words. Why was he telling me all that stuff? I came here to earn, not to donate money!

“Do you understand now?” he smiled encouragingly, sipping his coffee.

“I do,” I nodded stupidly. “But at this moment you are working on a gas generator.”

“Yes,” he did not deny the obvious.

I struggled with a desire to run away without explanation—absolutely everything annoyed me about the place. And I wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Quarters…

We began fine-tuning my work schedule: it was not supposed to interfere with my studies. Polak was surprised to learn that my classes ended at midnight twice a week.

“What program are you taking at the university?”

“Alchemy and the art of dark magic.”

“Uh…”

I waited patiently—which one of my skills would he question? I swear I was ready to cast the Odo Aurum spell on the spot!

“Have you been engaged in research and development previously?” Mr. Polak asked cautiously.

In my opinion, the boss began catching on to whom he was speaking.

“Yes,” I nodded, “I have a patent in the engineering field.”

“Right, they told me…”

’Why did you ask then?’

He clapped his hands: “Well, let’s try to get down to business.”

“Let’s try” was an apropos phrase in this context.

Polak gave me a sketch made by hand, and ordered to transfer it to a Whatman paper. Then he left, probably going back to nap in some other place. First of all, I dragged one of the drawing boards to the window, mercilessly hitting a desk cluttered with pots of violets. The secretaries, pointedly clanking their heels, moved the pots to another windowsill.

For two hours I transferred the sketch in fine lines and then went to a familiar pub to have a showdown with Quarters. That malicious serpent! To draw his friend into this…

“Ron, who did you send me to, you bastard?!”

A guilty expression appeared on Quarters’ face: “Tom, I’ve got a cousin working there, and she is crazy about Polak. Be a sport and give them a hand!”

“Redhead or brunette?”

“She usually wears curls. Listen, they’ve been breaking their backs for two years with zero result. My uncle will fire them soon.”

“What do I have to do with that? I would have to spend a year just to delve into the topic! What could I do that they haven’t done already?”

Quarters rolled his eyes: “Had they done anything, the situation would have been different! Have you met Johan?”

I tensed up: “What, is he worse than…?”

“Yes, he is—I don’t have the words! My uncle had hired stars of academic science for the firm. Think for yourself: who can get carried away by breeding shitty mold, except for a white mage? They do breed mold there! But they haven’t been able to make a working device. Polak chatters, Johan writes articles, and an alchemist of theirs, Carl, raises a fuss: ‘Give me ideas!’ Tom, do you remember how you excelled at the seminars? Do the same with them—make them run!”

“How can I excel in white magic? I am an alchemist! Those two fields have almost no connection.”

“Well, bring this thought up to them. Tom, I’ll pay you from my own pocket!”

“Two hundred.”

“Agreed.”

“Per month.”

“Agreed!”

I realized that I made a bad bargain. As a bonus, I managed to shake out of Quarters his understanding of the problem. Ron knew nothing and didn’t care to learn about the improved microorganisms. The company was formed two years ago in the wake of new developments, promising, according to experts, fantastic profits. The work was funded by Ron’s uncle who owned a sewage disposal factory and was an extremely pragmatic and meticulous guy. Well-versed in profit generation, he knew little about employing academic nerds. How he managed to maintain patience for two years was incomprehensible, but Quarters was aware that BioKin had ignominiously failed tests more than once. If I knew then what the failed tests meant…

Well, becoming a killjoy for the staff was not complicated, and no one would cope with the task better than a dark magician. It remained unclear whether the firm’s goal was feasible at all; people from the academy like to work on the undoable! I feared the work would be such that I wouldn’t want to put it in my resume, but two hundred crowns from Quarters were guaranteed to me anyway.

Better to take the money up front…

Captain Baer was busy creating a network of agents, a task that would take years, not months, and certainly not days. Locomotive believed that he was the only one in the office engaged in real work.

The whole of Redstone’s NZAMIPS searched for the mysterious sorcerer by the sweat of their brows. For heaven’s sake, who did he do harm to? The chief of the division saw the heart of the problem and pondered: if a mean trick on the “cleaners” and the capitol’s raid on the regional NZAMIPS were cover-up operations, what would be the next move of the enemies? What would have to occur after the media stirred up the townsfolk with chilling stories of the supernatural frenzy in the neighborhood? Half of NZAMIPS higher-ups would immediately lose their jobs, but that would happen on the surface. Following the onset of panic, a muddy wave of forgotten customs and strange superstitions—superstitions that the state had been eradicating since the time of the Inquisition—would flow from the cracks. And somebody hoped to ride that wave.

Mysticism! The word that decent people do not say. An echo of primitive times, when people were ruled by Fear with a capital “F”, great and comprehensive Fear, Fear consisting of many small fears: fear of the elements, crop failures, animals and neighbors, and most importantly, fear of creatures from the other world. A multitude of false gods awaited unwary minds on the back streets of memory, captivating them by the beauty of rituals and enticing by promises of love; but, whatever their adherents alleged, they brought only more fear into the world. It didn’t matter what people asked of ancient magic; they could get what they wanted just by chance, if they were fortunate, but the beggars always paid for the asking. It seemed that by now people had become more reasonable and forgotten their silly belief in fairy tales. But logical magic was inaccessible to all and was not omnipotent, and, therefore, again and again under different pretexts people returned to a naive belief in miracles.

That is, the belief is naive in the beginning. Captain Baer caught one such wave that coincided with the abolition of the Inquisition: under sweet moans about love and goodness, latter-day priests reveled in the power, demanded offerings, and then dragon tears, unbridled orgies and human sacrifices took their turn. The troops hesitated to enter the city, whose residents declared the foundation of Heaven on Earth; a couple months later, the same troops were engaged in the removal of forty thousand corpses, fighting off the few surviving monsters (who, typically, ate only human flesh). The ruins of Nintark remained inhabitable…

Knock on wood! Why scare yourself ahead of time?

Locomotive gained enough experience and decisiveness in dealing with “non-formals” (a vague term used in reports for any non-normal humans), and the bylaw mandating “gatherings of no more than three people” hadn’t been canceled yet. The authorities had not forgotten how badly such gatherings could end. It was enough to reinstate the licensing of public events, and NZAMIPS chambers would be full of the homegrown gurus. Someone worked hard feeding those psychos with appropriate information, motivating them, taking them under his control, but so far all his efforts came to naught. The inopportunely-appearing dark magician tamed the supernatural in the region, turning the bloody drama into a comic scene—an occasion for jokes. With perverted pleasure, Captain Baer crushed the results of someone’s long-term work with a steamroller of police forces.

A big prize wasn’t long in coming.

In the blue light of the balls mounted on portable tripods NZAMIPS experts dismantled the ruins of a brick outhouse. Soldiers in protective suits and masks cautiously stacked clear glass vials with glowing contents into sealed containers. Locomotive’s hair stood on end just from looking at them.

The dragon tears! The first batch in seven years. But experts claimed that the recipe for the cursed potion had been lost. Was the source an archeological excavation? Foreign intervention? Even the scent of this potion resulted in a state of euphoria for a commoner and summoned a desire to trust and obey, not thinking about the consequences and repenting for one’s deeds. Booze for killers! In the white mages the potion caused irreversible addiction; the dark reacted to its action much more simply—they just puked.

All the residents of that house would have to be investigated regarding their involvement in the sales of that stuff. The distributor of the poison escaped the interrogation: upon seeing the police, the psycho maniac blew himself up in the boiler room that had been converted into a warehouse. The poor fellow did not know the specifics of the building code. The main apartment building only lost its glass windows; in the outhouse, the roof got blown off and one of the outside walls destroyed. There were no casualties among the NZAMIPS team; two were wounded by fragments of the roof, but the suicidal maniac died on site.

The poison served him right! Surely, he was hooked on his own potion, and they wouldn’t get anything coherent out of him in the interrogation anyway.

“You are to be congratulated.”

Before turning around, Locomotive drove a smug grin off his face.

“Yes, sir! The operation went off almost flawlessly.”

Mr. Satal nodded gravely, looking over the luminous scattering: “This will make the capitol authorities fuss around. But they will start asking difficult questions.”

Locomotive shrugged indifferently: “I have requested forty-four times an increase in funding over the last ten years; I can show you a copy of each of them.”

The coordinator angrily shook his head: “I don’t give a shit about your papers! What will we do when inspectors arrive here? They can stick their noses anywhere, and I don’t even know what you and Larkes have done.”

For some reason, Locomotive didn’t think of that. It isn’t enough to be honest, you must look honest. Any normal organization inevitably accumulates a couple of episodes that appear ambiguously untrustworthy. As soon as the auditors dug out something like this, he could kiss his captaincy goodbye!

“I … will do the cleanup.”

Mr. Satal nodded with satisfaction: “I’m glad we understand each other!”

Captain Baer worked with superiors of a dark nature for years, but it was the first time that he was so frankly offered to commit fraud. He was almost ordered to…

“And one more thing,” the coordinator stopped halfway to his limousine, “I didn’t have time to go into the details of our main investigation.”

Locomotive snorted mentally. Indeed, he didn’t have time!

“There is an opinion that our mage developed an unconventional power channel. We are not talking about a wild Empowerment, but, perhaps, university instructors remember an unusual student. Let’s say, over the past seven years. I think it will be easier if you talk to them,” Mr. Satal concluded.

Naturally! All university instructors of dark magic were traditionally salaried NZAMIPS part-timers. An unconventional channel… And then Captain Baer thanked all the gods that the empath wasn’t anywhere near the coordinator. He knew one magician whose power channel was guaranteed to be nonstandard, and he knew him very closely…

“Clean up the tail, Mr. Satal? We will do that, sir!” Tail? What does that mean?

Chapter 14

For my next work day at BioKin I arrived ten minutes early just to watch the others coming. Bummer! All employees were already at their workstations (as far as I knew, because I wasn’t officially introduced), but they weren’t doing any work. They all were in a mourning mood, suffering in silence.

I wondered if someone died there.

Upon closer examination, I was the only one who dressed more or less decently, in the sense that I had neither trousers that were stretched at the knees with fringe around the lapels, nor pseudo-artistic patches on my shirt, nor a hairstyle as if I had run across a stray camel. Naturally, that put me in opposition to the team, and they immediately attempted to humiliate me: the red-haired secretary (Quarters’ relative) brought me utterly cold coffee. When I tossed a warming spell into the cup almost without looking, nobody else showed a desire to joke.

No one tried to make me a closer acquaintance, either. Well, I easily figured out who Johan was—the guy Quarters mentioned, because there was only one white mage among them. A guy in leather pants could pass for the alchemist Carl (with the last name of either Fartsing or Ferting) and a younger lad with bright red hair - for his assistant; a chubby little man, sitting closer to the coffeemaker, resembled an accountant. Boss Polak and his secretaries needed no introduction.

I could easily picture a white mage in depression here, but it remained a mystery what or who could have driven seven people into a stupor. If all my future employers are like these, I’d rather go back to the garage business to fix motorcycles. I’m sure that will be a very profitable business! But since I took money (and twice for the same job), decorum demanded that I help them. The Tangor are proud, and reputation can be lost only once.

Pretending to be an emotionally dull dark jerk, I went to the boss to find out if my previous day’s work was done correctly. They paid me for something, right? Mr. Polak looked at me painfully, but I was deaf to his suffering. I myself had to invent the next assignment: “Maybe I’d better learn design of a particular node and focus on it? Or work on the gas generator system as a whole?”

“I’m not sure if you will understand the scheme…”

I smiled politely: “Coupling alchemy with magic is my strong point!” It was true, at least for dark magic.

Once more he looked around the tables in confusion, and I finally grasped it: “Perhaps, your drawings are not systematized? I could do it. Orderliness helps a lot in work!”

He perked up a bit, nodded, and asked me to organize the documents in chronological order. Unfortunately, most of them had no dates, and, armed with archaeological methods, I had to arrange the papers in layers. Periodically, I tried to obtain advice from Polak, then from Carl, and soon they got fed up with me. Polak deserted first, followed by the rest; by lunch time, I was left alone in the office (except for the secretaries). Finally, that got me.

“Girls, what happened? Or have you been like this the whole time?”

Ron’s relative rolled her eyes, enjoying an opportunity to show her awareness: “They are in depression since yesterday!”

“Do not keep me in suspense! What happened yesterday?”

“A test at the sewage factory,” the brunette stepped in and sniffed. “Another one!”

It explained a bit of the situation.

“And how did it end?”

“As always!”

That meant they failed it. I could have guessed that.

By the end of the day I managed to go through almost a third of the documents and get acquainted with the subject of the work. Polak was wrong when he said that I wouldn’t understand the scheme. Drawings are typically made according to the same set of standards; otherwise, manufacturers wouldn’t be able to use them. And it doesn’t matter what you put in the fermentation vat—beer or sewage; from the alchemical point of view, it is all the same, as soon as it is organic. As well as I understood it, they tried to design a complex nonlinear control mechanism as a set of perforated drums, to which the device was supposed to turn under a specific combination of input parameters (like through a set of locks). The idea was beautiful, but it did not work for some reason. I wasn’t sure that I could figure out why the design was failing. Two variants of different complexity were presented in the piles of papers, and, judging by the contents of the documents, both schemes of perforation were developed by the local white mage, Johan. I don’t mean that his schemes were wrong, but he was guided by the logic of the magical process, and the limitations of such an approach were seen very well in the design of my motorcycle. That gave me some hope that the problem could be solved…

Coming to work the next day, I caught Johan stiff drunk.

My coworkers pretended that it was nothing out of the ordinary. I tried not to pay attention to Johan, blend with the team, but it was beyond me. I decided they didn’t understand what was happening. Okay, as to the dark mages, there are few of us in Redstone, and the dark from the university do not talk much to the townsfolk. So the latter do not know what is normal for a dark. But the white ones are a different story. There ought to be as many of them as dirt here! Was I the only one who knew how Johan’s drinking would end?!

A white magician who goes on a drinking bout will usually not come out of it alive. Well, maybe he will, if you resort to involuntary hospitalization. Their psyche is considered to be fragile and not adapted to the ills of life. Once unable to cope with the nervous shock and falling into a chemical relaxant, a white will drown his mental anguish in wine again and again, and he will have less and less willpower to get out of it. But the physical condition of a white is directly related to the mental one…

Perhaps, the firm just wanted one of its developers to die? No, that was a bad joke on my part…

But I needed to save the man, no kidding!

Driving off the secretaries, I made killingly strong coffee and went to bring the guy, with a runny nose, to his senses; I took his hand and put the cup in. Regretfully, I had no egg yolks and pepper handy, but I threw so much lemon in the coffee that my eyes started watering.

“Have a sip, please! You have to drink it out.”

White mages respond to physical contact differently—a touch sets them on an intimate footing and makes willing to trust. Given that alcohol intoxication increases suggestibility, I hoped that he would do as I said.

“In one sip, opa!”

He gulped and painfully winced. A very good effect! I continued to hold his hand and looked him in the eye (it usually helps to be more persuasive): “Hey, buddy, you must go home! Rest well today, gather yourself up for tomorrow. Everything will be fine, I promise! We need your help. You will be okay! Do you want me to take you home?”

He shook his head drunkenly, stood up, and firmly went to the door; drunken whites first lose their brains before the rest of the body gets poisoned. I hoped that he would be able to pull himself together.

After Johan’s departure, the average mood in the office improved by two degrees. Probably, no one dared to start discussion of failure in the presence of that poor guy. After waiting for five minutes to make sure that Johan was gone, Polak loudly clapped his hands: “What do you think, guys, about a five-minute coffee break?”

Employees perked up, and their chairs began creaking. I nipped in the bud their attempts to sit on the drawings, so we all gathered around the secretaries’ table, ousting the unhappy girls. The table was quickly serviced with coffee, biscuits, and salted nuts, and even with a bottle of homemade liquor—which I generously poured into the coffee without delay.

“I cannot hide, my friends,” Polak began, “that the test results have been a big blow for us. But it’s not the end of the world. Who has ideas about the causes of the latest failure?”

Depressed silence reigned at the table.

“Come on, my friends, go ahead!”

“Magic cannot be coupled with alchemy,” Carl said gravely.

“Why is that?” A sip of liquor made me long for communion.

The alchemist glanced viciously at me: “Because those fields are unconnected!”

I pointedly raised my finger: “They interact through the material world! The main problem is to find the common ground, the points of contact.”

“Points? In the vat of shit?”

“What is wrong with the vat of shit from the alchemical point of view?”

“It does not work!”

I patted myself on the chest: “I have a patent for a device, in which a magical unit is built into an alchemical one, and it f*cking works! Although in the beginning, the conjunction was monstrous.” Should I actually show them my motorcycle?

But Carl did not want to listen to my success: “What do you think we ought to do?”

“Usually the problem can be solved by splitting the system into parts,” I shrugged.

At least, that worked for me once.

“Which parts?” Carl muttered angrily.

I shrugged again: “I’ll say when I have studied the process!”

“Carl,” Polak stood up for me, “let the boy learn the process in more detail!”

For the “boy” I would have beaten him in the face, but Mr. Polak was my boss. I had to smile.

The alchemist proudly turned his back on me. I couldn’t care less! Quarters’ relative poured liquor into my cup as a reward (the girls definitely did not like the alchemist). The conversation turned to non-serious topics: attending the spring festival and the company’s barbeque in the countryside. I watched, listened, and attempted to figure why Ron tried so hard to put me in this company. Kindergarten! I felt like I was among children!

“Why don’t you have a job as a magician?” the brunette cautiously got closer, thinking that two cups of liquor would have made me soft.

I feigned a warm, fatherly, and smug smile: “One does not interfere with the other, darling!”

She cutely pouted her lips and tried to take a seat on my lap.

The next day Mr. Polak sent me on a “business trip” to the client’s factory. Well, you could guess where to. I admit, only then did I realize what exactly caused such severe depression in the firm’s employees.

It is hard to give an adequate description of a sewage disposal factory. Not that I did not know before how sewage is treated, but little smelly tubes in the lab did not provide me with insight into the scale of the system that was capable of processing the wastes of the whole city. Dark magicians do not like such things, but I was personally impressed by the magnitude of it: rows of giant pumps, pipes of my height in diameter entangled in staircases, vats with spikes of thermometers, and a constantly dancing flame of emergency exhaust above the pipes (can you guess what gas was burning?).

I was not welcome there. I have to admit, I did not immediately realize why.

“What, BioKin again?” the manager grimaced.

“Yes,” I shyly confessed.

“In relation to what occurred three days ago?”

“Right.”

He did not want to deal with me and passed into the hands of the shift master.

“What are you there?” the worker squinted suspiciously.

It seemed to be unwise to introduce myself as a new employee in that situation.

“An independent auditor!” I arched my chest. “Investors want to know feasibility of the project.”

“This is long overdue… Office rats!” the master expressively presented his point of view.

“Let’s do it like this: you’ll help me understand what’s going on, and those smarty pants will no longer disturb you.”

’Because they are about to be swept out with a dust broom,’ I added to myself.

We shook each other’s hands, and the staff became much kinder to me.

It quickly became clear that our office wanted to design a prototype of the control block for a fermentation vat, the main production unit of the factory. Every vat was fed with filtered and stirred sewage, and illuminating gas and a tarry substance—used as a raw material for all sorts of chemical products—were received as output. Oh, plus lots and lots of water. The essence of the problem was that the super proliferative bacteria, modified through white magic methods, were extremely sensitive to the composition of… hmm… culture medium. Much, much more sensitive than the unpretentious wild strains! As soon as the microscopic workers, invisible to the naked eye, got overheated or overcooled, they lost their activity, and the vat had to be stopped. And cleaned. My visit to the factory coincided precisely with the cleaning event, and I could tell you: a ghoul one hundred years old compared to that would be like a walking scented candle. The half-treated sewage had to be stored somewhere else for the cleaning of the fermentation vats, and that added flavor to the situation.

I could kill people guilty of triggering even one such event, but if BioKin was the cause of that at least twice… then the workers’ sincere hatred was understandable. I did not want any more visits to the sewage facility, but intuition told me that the solution of the design problem could only be found at the factory. There was something in the enhanced bacteria that turned their inoculation into quiet sabotage. If I wanted to work off Quarters’ money, I had to find that intangible factor.

Nothing distracts one better from evil thoughts than hard, creative work! The object of work in this case is irrelevant. In a few days, I totally forgot the events of the past few months, as though the whole saga about the Dark Knight had nothing to do with me.

Not surprisingly, when I noticed the chief of Redstone’s NZAMIPS waiting at the university gates, I did not linger my eyes on him for a second. All the more so because Captain Baer was in civilian clothes. Maybe he was waiting for a girl there?

No, the captain (Quarters told me that his nickname was “Locomotive”—he was like a steam engine: slow-witted, narrow-minded, and impossible to stop) had other plans. When I caught up with him, he hissed: “Hey! Slow down.”

I slowed down and exhaled a disgruntled huff: “Any questions for me, sir?”

“We need to talk.”

He took me to a dark cafe and offered a seat at the far table. I did not mind—I preferred that other people did not see me with him. Otherwise, it would be the talk of the town.

“I want to re-record your crystal.”

My eyes may have popped out: “Why is that?”

“Because I can replace it without any problem, but they’ll have my head if I lose it.”

“I don’t get it!” I was being honest.

The policeman frowned crossly.

“Look here! I have gotten a new supervisor recently. I worked with my previous boss for fifteen years; naturally, I helped him a few times, did some favors—I couldn’t stay that long on his team without that. But God forbid I should trust any of the dark mages; I know your brothers’ nature very well. My boss had personally covered up the case of your “breakdown”, saying that the channel was stable and there was no reason to panic. I did not mind; there was no point in arguing with the boss. Had I gathered an expert commission to investigate, both you and we would have endured a lot, but the conclusion would have been the same. It’s a different story now: he is no longer my boss, and I can’t pin his words to the file. I’ve been thinking and realized that I was a fool—I shouldn’t have believed a dark magician. It’s not about you personally, it’s just that you guys have differently rotated brains; you cannot take other people’s interests into account.”

“Why, we can!” I replied touchily.

“Not in this case,” the captain dismissed my comment. “In short, the entire division is looking for one smart ass, browsing crystal records, fussing around everywhere. The new boss will see your crystal sooner or later, and it will be better if he doesn’t find the “breakdown” in it. Do I have your interest?”

I clearly understood that the chief of Redstone’s NZAMIPS was offering me to collude. And it was more important to him than to me!

“I do not agree if it’s for free.”

“What do you want?” Locomotive growled in an unfriendly manner.

“I want to know everything!” I joked.

“Then you’ll die early,” he promised.

I shrugged: “Maybe. You won’t pay me anyway; after money, information is the second most valuable thing. Let’s agree as follows: you will fully answer one of the questions that interests me, we’ll record a new crystal, and you’ll give me back the old one.”

“Ha!”

“Come on! You don’t really believe that I’ll blackmail you, knowing what is at stake for me, do you?”

“Then why do you want it back?”

“Are you kidding? That was my real Empowerment!”

He paused for a moment, staring at me with blank eyes. I never thought that a man with such a dull appearance could have a bright mind. Now I knew.

“Agreed,” the captain decided. “The crystal hasn’t been numbered; after it has left the storage, nobody will be able to discover where it was recorded. You can’t present it as an imprint of another mage’s aura; your name was engraved on it before the recording.”

“I have never even thought about giving to a stranger!” I reassured him.

“You will come to my office tomorrow—here’s your notice.”

The timing was perfectly appropriate: he was obviously aware of my class schedule.

“I will,” I hid the notice in my pocket and suddenly asked him, “How do you feel about zombies?”

He gave me a hard look.

“In theory, I mean!”

“Don’t be a smartass!” he threatened. “I’ll watch you closely, you theorizer, son of a bitch!”

Why did he mention my mother? Ugh. I just had to find a place for my dog.

Chapter 15

Only in a week I managed to leave the sewage factory and come back to the office. I expected to ask Johan a couple of questions, but the white mage’s desk was empty.

“He took a vacation,” Polak tried not to look at me, “to recover from sickness. During his time off, we’d better put things in order…”

The white magician started commanding my respect—he decided to ask for help! Let’s face it: these guys do not always have enough spirit to understand their own problems. A good reason to roll up my sleeves.

“Can I take the test records?”

Polak pointed to a cabinet full of folders. I wondered whether it had the same chaos in the records as in the drawings.

Thick, bound folders kept records of all BioKin’s deeds. The project had a brisk start two years ago: a team of three magicians and four alchemists gathered together to make a unit that would utilize the advantages of the enhanced bacteria. As its basis, they took a standard fermentation vat and four of the most promising strains. The process worked beautifully in the tubes, but when they tried to scale-up, failures came one after the other. To be more specific, the record uptime of the new gas generator was one month. The alchemists deserted first, quickly figuring that they wouldn’t get a free ride, and then followed the magicians, one of whom was Johan’s student. For the last six months, BioKin worked with less staff, fine-tuning (seemingly) the final nuances of the design. With no result…

The project looked quite hopeless; it was the right time to quit. But I had already squandered Quarters’ advance and didn’t expect any more money to come. If the unit could not work, I had to explain why, at least.

For three weeks I pondered the problem, viewing it from different angles, focusing mainly on the actions of people who managed the fermentation vats, not on the charts provided by the bacterial engineers. Summer break at the university facilitated my task: I spent all my days and nights at the factory. Soon I realized that the gas generators in general were surprisingly stupid; that is, the time elapsing between the turn of the control switch and the response of the culture was quite long, up to fifteen minutes. According to the experiments’ records (and I had no desire to repeat them again), the inoculation of advanced cultures into the fermentation vat was like trying to run a tractor engine on nitroglycerin. No way would it work! The fact that BioKin managed to keep the unit stable for the whole month was a masterpiece of alchemical thought! In order to substantiate my feelings, I read all of Johan’s articles and lecture notes on the theory of operation control and came to the disappointing conclusion: the application of the new BioKin design for the control block was impossible without an essential modification of the vat’s design.

The latter idea I presented at the next coffee break, now taking place regularly (Johan, who had put on weight and regained some of the pink color in his face, was back to work).

“How should a ‘perfect vat’ look, in your opinion?” Polak smiled encouragingly.

“A long, small diameter tube.”

Carl snorted.

“It will cool down too quickly!”

“It can be warmed from outside,” I snapped.

“What if we use a self-heating culture?!” Johan unexpectedly helped me out.

“How about cleaning them?” Carl did not stop.

“We can combine multiple tubes into a battery and clean them one at a time.” Strings of digits and design schemes were already spinning in Polak’s eyes, who shouted, “Smaller volumes are easier to handle!”

“And use diverse strains simultaneously,” Johan stuck to his guns.

The team took heart, and the work began in earnest. Carl drove me off my favorite drawing desk—that was the first result. Wouldn’t it be fairer to drag his own board to the window? I protested but soon realized that on a wave of enthusiasm he would do all the hard work for me. I quietly retreated and returned to leisurely sorting the drawings.

Polak knocked in money for the model (simple, one pipe) from the client, and it was a feat worthy of inclusion in the annals. Making the buyer fork out for yet another pilot device after two years of total failure… Polak had a phenomenal talent for persuasion, though, perhaps, Ron contributed to his success, too. We hoped that the new gas generator would be tested by the end of summer.

I wondered if I should quit before running the tests or wait for the results. I was sure the unit would work as designed, but feared another meeting with the shift master from the factory.

Just after the drawings of the new design had been sent to the factory and we had learned that there wouldn’t be any problem with assembly, Ron invited me to the wine cellar “Three Students” to celebrate something. I did not mind and greatly hoped that he would buy us something stronger than coffee—all that creative rigmarole wore me down even more than combat with ghouls.

“Dance!” Quarters demanded.

“Want a kick in the teeth?”

He asked touchily: “Why have you gotten so angry?”

I would have explained why, but I did not want to start all over again. Ron could not keep his news secret for long: “Our patent is bought…”

“Hmm…”

“For twenty-five thousand crowns!”

“What?!”

“And a crown from each machine that installs the device. Can you imagine how many diesel cars they make per year?!”

“But our device won’t be on each one; dark magic is expensive.”

Quarters squinted his eyes: “Man, did you show your amulet to anyone?”

“Well… to Rakshat, for example.”

“Did he tell you that your design was a ‘transmaster?’”

“No.”

“I am telling you that! It does not use the Source, meaning it can be installed by any magician. Dark magic is only needed to create the inverse template, and then any white dolt can rubber-stamp the amulets. Done!”

I was flabbergasted. I felt like a cat that someone dipped in a cold bathtub.

“Didn’t we sell it too cheap?”

“Are you kidding? We sold only the principle; design and production are not our problems.”

I already knew what the realization of a basic idea would cost, and I understood that we got rich almost for nothing.

“When will I get the money?”

Quarters solemnly handed me a check: a large, multi-colored paper with gold lettering and metallic sheen. The money. A lot of money. Almost without any strain on my part. I love that so much!

“How will you spend it?” Ron was curious.

I brushed him aside. For now, I just wanted to look at the check, carry it with me, and show it to everyone.

“Interest will go to your student account.”

“Ron, you are a genius!”

“Come on,” Quarters was embarrassed. “If you think up something like this again, let me know!”

And then I noticed a funny thing.

“Listen, the check was issued two weeks ago.”

“So what? It’s not a fish; it won’t rot.”

“Then why didn’t you give it to me right away?”

“So that you wouldn’t lose the incentive to work.”

When the meaning of his words reached me, I almost lost my speech.

“You son of a bitch…”

To kill him! To wipe the bastard off the face of the earth and leave him without offspring!

“Quiet, be quiet! Why get worked up? Everything turned out excellent!”

“Shit!”

For a few minutes I unsuccessfully chased Quarters around the pub, but he refused to meet me in a fair fight. He locked himself in a bathroom stall. Breaking my way into the bathroom was kind of awkward, and I returned to the table, meanly determined to eat all of the food without him.

That rascal… god save me from working under his command!

In about ten minutes Quarters got bolder and came out of his hiding place: “You got mad at me for nothing, Tom!” he proclaimed emotionally (I had already finished all the pork ears on the plate by that time). “I only wanted the best for everybody.”

“Go to hell! All because of a cool chick?”

“Are you kidding?” Ron took offense. “I bet with my uncle I could make the device work. Thirty percent of the shares in his factory if I win.”

What could I say? He definitely had a talent! Sort of dark magic, just more profitable.