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The next morning, everything that happened seemed like a dream to me. The best thing I could imagine was that I lost my mind. The life of this man on the launcher, which invaded my consciousness along with the worm, the current me strongly did not want to accept. But I could not explain to myself where and how Kaplan flew away.
I tried looking for him. But to no avail, and after prolonged tantrums and tears shed right from the heart, I found a map in the cart and headed for the sunset, where the capital was supposed to be.
Do you know how hard it is not to trust yourself? To feel that consciousness is slipping into the abyss of uncertainty about what you see in front of you. I wanted to grab a straw of clarity, but it dissolved, leaving my head like a porridge of painfully soft pod jam. I lived an ordinary life, mopped the floors, cleaned up after the wounded, dressed them, and seemed to be in my place. And now? Under the thin veil of everyday life there are hidden questions that we do not ask ourselves. Because eating today is more important than understanding who you are. Culture, even as simple as in a hospital, conversations with soldiers, their views and jokes, hides from the piercing cold of the unknown that lurks behind your back. And if you pay attention to it, the surrounding stability disintegrates like a dream.
In these heavy thoughts, I drove up to the dawn gate of Salat Sarai, the capital of the Khanate of the Dial. There was chaos at the checkpoint. The line of nomads stretched to hide behind the walls of the city, and there was not enough military to stop them. Even the shots in the air did not disrupt the flow of people and animals. I directed the cart to the queue.
After several hours and futile attempts to break through, the gates began to close. The screams and crush reached a climax, a couple of stun grenades flew, and a burst from a machine gun went through the crowd. The people who had recoiled, driven to utter despair, rushed at the closing gates with renewed vigor. And the crowd began to drag the selectosaurs along, and with them the cart. An icy hand of fear gripped my heart. When I tried to get off the cart, the air above my head warmed up from a laser beam, and I saw two people on the left turned into charred firebrands. There was a smell of burning, and I fell into the pressing crowd, preparing to say goodbye to my unhealthy personality. But someone's hand grabbed me.
“Where's Kaplan?” a woman with bright big blue eyes and stubble coming out above her upper lip shouted in my face.
It took me a long time to figure out what to say. The woman pulled me out of the crowd and led me back into the desert.
“Where's Kaplan?” she repeated, taking me to a sufficient distance, turning around and pointing a gun at me.
There were more screams behind me, I turned around and saw the dark smoke from the laser. The cannon itself flashed on the tower above the gate. The crowd shot back, running away from the gate in the desert.
“Don't try my patience," the woman hissed and cocked the trigger, which made the gun hum, gaining charge.
“I... I don't know," I answered and looked my companion in the eyes.
It seems that I did it sincerely enough, because she frowned and lowered her weapon. Closing her eyes, she made a decision inside her deep blue eyes and moved into the desert. Without thinking twice, I followed her.
With not a word, we walked for almost two hours, bypassing the city from the west. Game, that was the woman's name, found a carpet in the sand. Crawling under it, my companion disappeared, and I followed her. Inside there was a tunnel that led towards the city.
We walked for a long time making rare unexpected turns which suddenly appeared in the darkness, illuminated only by unusual white stones that were placed here and there in the walls. Eventually the road led us to a metal door. Game knocked on the door three times and after a while it opened, blinding me with a bright electric light.
Inside there was a spacious room, in the middle of which there was a round table, and behind it several people, men and women. And among them stood, and it was absolutely hard to believe, an anthropomorphic bull. His huge head, crowned with shining white horns, passed to his broad shoulders and chest, and his hands ended with completely human fingers covered with brown skin and thin hair of the same color that covered his entire body.
“Where's Kaplan?” the bull boomed the same question that my companion asked me.
"I'd like to know that, too," Game shrugged and stood at the table, turning to me.
Everyone present was looking at me, and I myself lowered my head to my torn and dirty dress. The voice, which belonged to the memory of the man who worked on the launcher, reminded me that immortals could change their bodies as they pleased with the help of imprint modification. Entire sectors of the galaxies were dedicated to free-form zones where an immortal person could change his avatar and become, for example, a mermaid or a humanoid eagle. Many of them came to die on the launcher. None of them knew that the anomaly would send them to a new world. And the bull standing in this room now is most likely a descendant of such hapless immigrants.
"Is that the one he went after?" The old man with the mechanical eye asked.
"She was in his cart. I found her at the gate. Kaplan wasn't with her.”
“Damn,” the bull banged his hand on the table.
I watched in fascination as the cups on the table jumped from his blow. But most of all I was interested in the fact that his hand, clenched into a fist, turned into a real hoof.
“Where's Kaplan?” the beast repeated his question, turning to me, frowning and revealing huge teeth capable of grinding my thin bones.
“I... he…Flew away.” was the only words I could squeeze out of myself, feeling my legs give way. Everything went dark.
I woke up on a cot hollowed out in a stone. An old man with a mechanical eye was sitting next to it and was picking at some strange device that made squeaks and clicks.
“Yes, my girl,” Router Ping nodded, that was his name, “you're not all right. You should stay here for a couple more days, and then I…”
"She has to tell us what happened.”
Game appeared from behind Router.
“She has a severe mental disorder, my dear, you are unlikely to get anything intelligible from her.”
“Game, Ping is telling the truth," I nodded and smiled painfully.
“How did you find out, and how in the name of the moons does this girl know our real names?” the woman was surprised and almost screamed.
“Maybe Kaplan told her?” Router shrugged, “I injected her with a serum, if she knew something, she would have already told. Аll I see is that the girl has lost her mind. She thinks of herself as a man working at the launcher, where immortals go to die. She even told me a couple of funny stories.”
“Kaplan is not such a fool to share our names with anyone.”
“Maybe not, but he followed her back to this hospital. Oh, this youth of yours.”
“What's your name, you sick stupid?” Game asked angrily.
"He called me Strife," I said, and sobbed.
Tears turned my interlocutors into blurry silhouettes. And their words stopped bothering me. I don't know what made me want to cry more, the loss of the only person who was dear to me in this strange world, or the fact that I couldn't decide who I was, a cleaner from a hospital or an interdimensional traveler from the launcher “Baby”.
I do not know how much hours have passed, but the next time I woke up with a completely empty head in the same room, but this time alone. Instead of a door there was a grating, behind which was a dark corridor. Swearing could be heard from afar, and I reluctantly began to listen to it as the only source of external irritation.
Three or four voices were arguing, I couldn't even hear snatches of phrases, but I heard the word “kill” many times, which made me break out in a cold sweat. And I remembered another camera. In the same city. The young face of my nocturnal guest, who offered me to become…
The grate rose with difficulty and Game entered my cell and nodded her head at me to get up. Together with the hunched man, they took me back to the hall, where all the locals gathered again at a round table: the bull, Ping with mechanical eye, a man in a guard costume and an old lady in rags of a beggar. The hunchback and Game sat me down on a chair and stood on the sides themselves.
“Look at her,” the bull winced, “she'll run away from her own shadow.”
“Either that, or we abandon our idea," Router frowned.
The bull growled and hit the table with his hoof-fists, so that the wood seemed to crack.
“You wanted to check, check,” Game nodded at me.
The bull's eyes became bloodshot, but then he took a deep breath and, after folding his arms on his chest, asked:
“What's my name?”
I looked down into the depths of memory, although there was no answer there, but the name itself appeared on my lips:
“Chicag.”
The bull frowned and breathed rapidly.
"You see," Ping smiled, adjusting his mechanical eye.
“I see,” Chicag growled.
“And mine?” the old lady asked.
“Bushy-Boo," I replied, feeling some movement behind my back. I realized that this was what told me the names.
"He didn't know her real name!" Router exclaimed and almost jumped in his seat, “Kaplan only knew her as Mother Tamat.”
Everyone fell silent and studied the space of the table in front of them for a long time, trying not to look into each other's eyes.
“This is our only chance," Ping pleaded, "otherwise we won't be able to cope.”
“Okay, I'm in favor,” Game reluctantly nodded, and put her hand on the table.
“And me,” Bushy-Boo nodded and put her hand down too.
The others nodded in turn and also touched the table. Only the bull stood with his hooves still folded on his chest.
"At least she should know what she's doing," he said finally, shrugging his shoulders, "it's fair.”
Ping looked at him, sighed and nodded.
“Good. Know this, Mad Strife, we are the Order of Macaron, heirs of the holy Bundle bequeathed by ancestors who fell from heaven. We are fighting against the tyranny of the unknown that has seized power on our land. We have been following it for many years. It can command any mind that happens to be nearby; it can change forms; move objects with the power of thought, kill on sight; it can move in space without visible effort and create things out of nothing, and therefore it is almost impossible to defeat it. But tomorrow we have to check whether it is as invulnerable as the legends say. And in this we need your help, Saint of Minea.”
Without blinking, I looked at the audience.
"At dawn we will try to get into the palace where the unknown lives," Chicag continued after the old man, "And in order to do this, we need to know the name of the one who will stand guard. Kaplan, who was lost in the desert, knew him. Say his name, and he will open the door for us under the palace. So, you will help our fight and earn our trust. Are you ready to help?”
I was lost, thoughts like a flock of bats were darting around the cave of my skull. But without noticing it, I nodded.
"Then it's settled," the bull put his hooves on the table.
And at that moment, the figure of a woman with golden curls appeared out of the darkness. She walked over to the table and put her hands on it too. And the voice of the immortal inhabitant of the launcher in my mind immediately recognized her. She was the one looking for whom he jumped into an anomaly and ended up in this young world. Our eyes met.
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