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I was present at a long historical excursion conducted by Master Eleanor. He stood with a pointer in the middle of the steppe and was speaking about the aborigines riding duckhorses that inhabited the territory of Iria before the arrival of the Outs. Meanwhile the duckhorses carried their riders straight at me. The aborigines were completely different, someone was a man, someone was an anthropomorphic animal, and someone was a clot with tentacles, but they all came screaming. One of them was carrying a huge humanoid bull Chicag, rushing at me. I took to flight. Moreover, I was no longer running across the steppe, but through a huge house, and I was making excuses for the sacred DVD box to the objects placed around. I could feel the heresy my lips were tasting. I was afraid that I was blaspheming, but I just watched the panic that seized me. At some point, opening another door in an endless series of rooms, I became extreemly afraid that there would be emptiness behind it, and so it turned out. I screamed and woke up.
“The ship!” I shouted when I saw May-e-oka's face. But even I did not understand the meaning of this word and again fell into a dream.
I came to my senses for a long time. I either fell into darkness, or was resurrected for a moment in some shaking and rumbling reality only to disappear into the void again.
Baraman did not leave my bed, changed compresses and brought a drink that stank worse than himself. But I didn't resist and drank, which always made the shaggy creature smile. When I finally awaken, the real torment began.
Being trapped in a submarine is probably the worst thing that has happened to me in my entire life. Sailors in an attempt to shout over the rumbling mechanisms that stink of sweat and gasoline. The sound of engines capable of waking the dead. The thin walls of the cabins could not hide anything. There were two engines and they turned them on alternately, because these gasoline monsters could not work for a long time. The one farthest from our cabin, I called the Coffin, and the one closest to me was the Bastard. The first one was working now. When the second one was on I couldn't sleep at all. There were four of us in the cabin, me, May-e-oka, Sha Zumm and Baraman. In addition to us, several accumulators were huddled in our tiny room, to which a technician periodically came and unscrewed something.
The captain of the ship refused to take orders from Sha Zumm and led the ship not towards the Strait of Hope, but to the capital of the free land of Bizartia – Alcexandoria. This was the reason for their constant quarrels, and Cyborg's attempts to get the captain to contact the general command by radio. But in order to conduct such a communication session, it was necessary to surface. And in the conditions of the directive of increased secrecy of movement, which the captain received, it was impossible to do this. I heard them swearing constantly, because the bridge of the submarine was just above our cabin.
"A little more, Captain Flute, and I will have to take your ship by force," Sha Zumm warned once again.
"Ha, I've had enough of your threats! Hey guys, lock up this pile of metal with the rest and don't let it out until we get to the port!”
“Don't push your luck.”
"My fate is in my hands," the captain grinned.
After these words, the Cyborg suddenly fell silent and left the bridge.
When he went down to the cabin, he found Baraman pouring his swill into me again, and I was wincing, unable to resist.
“You wanted to neutralize him this time. Why did I prepare?” May-e-oka was surprised, putting on the safety of the needle gun and kneading her left side, which still had traces of a lizard bite.
“The captain has an electromagnetic grenade at his disposal. He took it out at the end of our dialogue and demonstrated his determination to use it. The fool does not understand that this will kill his batteries. Or maybe he understands.”
“Are you that sensitive to electromagnetic pulses?” the girl was surprised again.
Sha Zumm said nothing and left the cabin.
"He's gone to the lube shop again," May-e-oka muttered and fell back on her bunk.
"He likes this Richitina,” Baraman smiled.
“The ship...” I croaked.
"It didn't sail," the girl yelled, trying to shout over the Bastard who had started working behind her wall.
"I feel bad," I whined and spun around on the bed, trying to relieve the stuffiness that had piled up.
“The Savior must be taken to the air, there is absolutely nothing to breathe here.”
"Tell that to the captain," May-e-oka shrugged.
There was a rumbling and grinding sound behind me. The screams and noise became much louder. Sailors ran and bustled through the corridors.
“We're surfacing!” there was a shout on the speakerphone.
Sha Zumm returned.
“The hole on the starboard side. It’s not terrible, the compartment has already been isolated.”
“Your handiwork?” the girl asked sarcastically.
The cyborg said nothing and again disappeared back into the corridor.
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Baraman and May-e-oka lifted me to the upper deck. Almost the whole team poured out on the lower one and was going to swim, but the captain glared at them half a turn listening to the radio. Sha Zumm was held by three sturdy sailors beside him.
“For your sabotage, Commander Zumm, I will throw you into the sea right here. You've put the whole ship in danger.” The Flute growled, “And for what? The radio is silent. Your codes don't work.”
“Try again,” the Cyborg rang out, frowning.
I stopped listening to them and stared at the horizon. The air was intoxicating and it made my head spin. I closed and opened my eyes to cope with the rotation. Nausea, pain in the joints, for what?
“It didn't sail,” the girl said quietly, sitting down next to me, “the hit happened again. You restored the ship, but not completely. It sank there, at the pier.”
"The Savior did everything he could,” Baraman purred.
But I didn't listen to them. There was an emptiness in my chest. Meaninglessness flowed through the nerve endings and turned into bitterness. A hood of darkness was falling on my head.
The more I learned about myself and my abilities, the less I wanted to live. The support was knocked out from under my feet, and I felt myself falling into an endless abyss again but now mentally, unable to orient.
“This is normal,” May-e-oka read my thoughts.
I looked up at her with a heavy and bleary gaze.
"The way you feel," she clarified, "I remember how it was with my original. The feeling of constant loss, bitterness, unwillingness to be. A thousand years. It was unbearable for her for a thousand years, so she jumped. She endured for the sake of someone who was dear to her, she endured for a long time, but then she couldn't. She thought it would bring her liberation, but behind the nothingness was this cursed world. You can't imagine her disappointment when she realized she was trapped. She was immortal, just like your man from the launcher. The Outs copied her. What happened to her next, I do not know. But what I remember about her doesn't give me hope.”
“How to live then?” I said with difficulty, “How to live if there is no hope for the best?”
“In the world where she came from, there was such hope. It was possible to become an Angel there. Go to the higher dimensions.”
"Why didn't she do it?"
“She was... Used to it? Don't know. Memories speak of the fear of losing herself. Unwillingness to part with the body, obsession with achievements. She wanted to be the first woman to see the edge of the universe. Become famous. Write your name in the history of mankind. And a family. Everyone in her family became immortal. So did she. Judging by the programs that she liked to watch, Angels were disliked by those who were born and lived with a physical body for more than 30 earthly years on average. The notorious Outs originated as a movement against the will of the Central Computator controlled by the Angels. And they occupied an entire spiral arm. It is easy enough to imagine that there were those among the immortals who did not trust the higher dimensions after that. It was widely believed that all these higher dimensions were just another simulation, where you were being used as a cash cow to build new forms of virtual reality. Everyone remembered the Tesseracts well. The impossibility of direct communication with the Angels only piled up on these rumors. Freedom of information played a cruel joke on them.”
“I don't know so many words in your speech. Tesseract, Earth years, spiral arm, edge of the universe. It's exciting," I said, feeling myself alive again, touching the unknown with my imagination.
“My original was also fascinated by it, until she found out that the universe has no edge, the spiral arm ends, and the early tesseracts are just poorly packaged reality that can only reflect the user. No matter where you move, you can't escape from your disappointment. It uncompromisingly catches up with you as soon as you finally find out. And it would be fine if you just found out something, but the truth also turns out to be more prosaic and less attractive than your fantasy. Especially if it is connected with the nature of personality. Which is driven by power. And all its inventions were created only to subordinate others to this power.”
“You're so detached about it.”
“Yes, it's easy for me, I'm just copying words from memory. I am deprived of the sincere existential horror that my original experienced. When you don't ask me, I don't exist.”
“It's hard for me to understand ...”
“I can't understand it at all,” the girl laughed.
“Baraman can," the shaggy creature nodded.
I turned to him and stared in surprise into his white pupils. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the sailors disobeyed the captain, who was busy swearing with Sha Zoom, undressed and jumped into the water. However, four of them, those whom the Cyborg had put to sleep with shock during our appearance on the ship, were standing on the sidelines and talking about something.
“Baraman was afraid of life, so he burned his eyes. Baraman began to see more and now is not afraid of life, because he found out that Baraman does not belong to it.”
“You're talking some kind of heresy again.”
“Why is it interesting what the girl from the goo is saying, and what the Baraman is saying is heresy?”
“If you could see yourself, then such a question would not arise.”
“That's why Baraman deprived himself of sight, so that appearance would not deceive him. When Baraman met the Savior, he was also blind, and it was good for him.”
"Are you suggesting I blind myself right here?"
“No need, the Savior will see clearly. It's inevitable.”
“I'm telling you…”
But I didn't finish, because the captain's radio connection broke and through the hiss I could hear the sea language transmitting the cipher. Everyone, including the sailors at sea, stared at the radio.
“The capital is under siege!” someone shouted from the water.
"Things are bad," the others whispered.
The captain waved his hand vigorously, ordering the sailors to be silent.
“And what should we do now?” they did not let up, “Go to death?”
The captain finished listening to the cipher and snatched a sheet of paper from the copyist. After running through it several times, he turned dark, ordered the entire crew to be gathered on the lower deck, and went down inside the ship.
The sailors got out of the water, dressed and lined up in two rows along the deck. Sha Zumm was released, and he joined us. An impressive-sized senior technician of the ship, Richitina and her team, got out of the hatch into the light with great difficulty. Passing by the Cyborg, she blushed all over and broke into a smile.
"I wonder what she's doing with him in the engine room," muttered Baraman.
"Moving parts” May-e-oka grinned.
Everyone lined up and waited for the captain to appear, but he still did not come back. Then the lieutenant hesitated and went in search of him. He came back pretty quickly, all white.
"Captain Flute committed suicide," the lieutenant said, climbing out of the hatch and standing next to me.
The sailors murmured.
“Silence!” Sha Zumm commanded, “The command of the vessel passes to the senior in rank. That is, to me.”
“I will not obey this tin can!” exclaimed the same sailor who discovered our appearance on the ship.
"Follow the chain of command, Private Fig," the lieutenant said in a trembling voice.
"They're demons!” the sailor shouted and threw a nut at me, which hit me painfully in the forehead, “I remember how they appeared out of thin air right in front of us! Right, guys?”
Fig looked back at his comrades, who nodded reluctantly.
“Red moon...” rasped Sha Zumm, “get ready, Master Bike, now comes the time to wish.”
“For a riot, you will all be court-martialed,” the lieutenant shouted timidly, “but then he also got a nut in the forehead and covered his face with his hands.”
But the sailors were not unanimous to the statements of the Fig. Some of them did not want to rebel.
“Tell us what was in the encryption!” shouted from the mixed ranks.
The lieutenant looked at Sha Zumm. He nodded.
“The capital has fallen. The port has been destroyed, so we will not be able to return to it. The transfer of troops to the mountains failed. Most of the residents died.”
The sailors exhaled heavily, some sit down on the deck and covered their heads with hands.
“All ships are ordered to move towards the free land of Plotania for regrouping.”
"But we won't do that," Sha Zumm thundered, "we are on a special mission of the council, and we have to move to the Strait of Hope to go out into the ocean. It is on us, and only on us now, whether we can save our house from invaders or not. We don't know who they are, but we know how strong they are. There is no chance to resist with the weapons that we have. Therefore, we need a new weapon, and we are going for it. Yes, the chance is slim. Yes, we may not recognize the world that we will save. You probably won't see your family and friends. And many simply won't live to see it. But there is no one else besides us. The Federation has fallen. We are the only ones left.”
The sailors silently looked at the Cyborg or at the floor of the deck. Fig rubbed his temples digesting what he had heard.
"What kind of weapon?" asked from the crowd.
“Our new weapon is a Master Bike,” Sha Zumm slapped me on the shoulder, which made me bend.
"He doesn't look like a weapon."
“Master Bike has knowledge of the secret technology of Outs, capable of creating and controlling mechanisms faster and more efficiently than we could ever imagine. You have already observed some of his abilities," the Cyborg looked at the sailors of the instigators, "He can create weapons capable of resisting unknown invaders, but for this these technologies must be discovered. We assume that it can be found on the Ops Islands.”
"And if they're not there?" Figs said.
"Then we'll come back and die like heroes."
"Shitty end," the sailor shook his head.
"When you entered the service, you took an oath," the lieutenant mumbled.
“There was no clause in this oath that we would serve this metal bucket.”
The crowd murmured, but Richitina appeared in front of the Fig and hit him in the face with a meaty hand so that the sailor fell. Snorting and lifting her nose, the woman proceeded to the stairs and climbed up to our deck. Her entire team followed her.
“Those who want to, can swim in all four directions,” Sha Zumm chuckled and folded his arms on his chest.
Several sailors followed the crew of mechanics.
“Where are you?” I heard the voice in my head.
A cold sweat ran down my back.
“We need to dive,” I said, turning to the Cyborg, “Now.”
"Don't interrupt, he's just starting to get it," May-e-oka said through her teeth.
“You don't understand. Something terrible is going to happen now.”
"The Savior is not lying," Baraman agreed, climbing into the hatch.
“Now or not...” began Sha Zoom, and froze, because the horizon was colored by a flash so bright that for a moment I was blinded.
Sailors fell on deck, covering their faces with their hands.
“Hurry up,” shouted Sha Zumm, grabbing the handrail, “I…”
“Prepare to dive!” the Lieutenant shouted, but many sailors could not come to their senses and grabbed each other, trying to find a way to escape.
“I can't see anything,” Sha Zumm thundered, “the matrices have burned down, lead me Master Bike.”
Shaking my head to throw off the white veil, I somehow found the hatch and began to help the Cyborg get down there.
“Wave,” said May-e-oka, helping me, “there is a shock wave, we need to hurry.”
Amid the shouts of the sailors, we descended into the central compartment of the ship. With great difficulty, Richitina followed me down with her team. The lieutenant climbed in next and Figs with a couple of his friends. And then we were turned upside down. More precisely, we were thrown first, and then turned over. I immediately grabbed several dead sailors with the worm. And the sight that opened up to me during their deaths was terrifying. The wave that carried us rose twenty meters and we flew together with the unfortunate sailors over the sea, unable to stop. Again and again, I was thrown from one victim to another. Until finally I hit my forehead on something inside the ship and began to lose consciousness. The last thing I had time to do was wish to come to my senses and level the ship.
I was lucky, the wish was fulfilled correctly. The ship was shaking, but it was no longer spinning. The hatch above my head was swinging in the wind. I took a chance and went up the stairs. I looked out, and I was almost blown overboard. The wave was descending, we were right under its peak and were about to be pulled by it into the depths of the sea. I closed the hatch and sealed it tight. The submarine shook and began to dive.
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