Chapter 23
The two walked slowly along the narrow mountain path, enjoying the silence and the fresh breeze that so pleasantly cooled the skin.
«What a beautiful sky.» - Mob decided to dilute the protracted silence.
«Yeah.» - Martha nodded blankly. Being engaged into her own thoughts, she did not particularly follow the road, completely relying on her companion.
«If you could make one wish for a falling star, what would you make?» - Mob took a new attempt to drag the woman in the conversation.
«To make you happy with that cook.»
The supervisor even tripped after her words.:
«You tell nonsense!»
His reaction made Martha smile eventually.
«What would you have wished for?»
They had just reached a wide stone bench at the edge of the cliff. Mob, gallantly brus.h.i.+ng away the dust and invited the lady to sit down.
«I would make a wish...» - a dramatic pause, soulful eye-to-eye look: - «To have the life without worries.» - he finished his «wish» with a laugh and pulled out a bottle of wine and a couple of gla.s.ses he had kept in advance with a magician's gesture.
Martha's smile became a little sincere: she enjoyed grooming of that tall men. The gla.s.ses were filled with red viscous liquid. Mob saluted Marthe and drained his gla.s.s, the woman did not lag behind. Strong drink pleasantly warmed.
They sat for a while longer, looking at the stars and the moon, each one lost in thoughts. Martha spoke first.:
«Could you help me with somebody?»
«Yes, of course, what can I do?»
«Bring Kyon to my office tomorrow morning.»
«Um, Kyon, that's the guy that... that I made friends with.» - Mob quickly corrected himself because he did not want to recall Marta their old feuds with the small boy.
«When did you become friends?» - the doctor squinted suspiciously. - «It doesn't matter, anyway. Just bring him tomorrow.»
«Hehe, you're concealing something. Is that because of him you were so depressed?» - alcohol had done its dirty work – Mob became noticeably more relaxed.
«Pfft, I won't be worry of him!» - hurriedly replied the woman, however, blush broke out on her cheeks told the truth.
«Oh, so it turns out I hit the target! Tell me what he did to you.»
«Nothing! Maybe if I'm in the mood, I'll tell you.»
A new working day began for Martha not in the best way – the head was splitting both from the drink the day before, and from the dream that she saw at the very morning. She dreamed of Kyon, who with a snide smile on his face did with her unimaginable things – and she had absolutely no strength to resist him, as if he reality is projected in which she was many times used by him that manner and would unable to resist him in any way. That reminiscences made the woman have burning ears and cheeks, and she was continually berating herself for what she couldn't get this stupid dream out of her mind.
Her companion of yesterday, on the other hand, had woKyon up in excellent spirits. The face was illuminated by bright smile, full of contentment with life until the very moment, as Mob realized that shamelessly overslept.
…
It was early morning.
Kyon woke up from a call, since it was time to get up and went to work. Having sat in his bed and rubbing his sleepy eyes, the guy thought about his dream, waiting for the already familiar flow of memories from his past life. Two minutes later, Kyon received full information about his life for the period from 8.5 to 16 years.
A wave of heat covered his body for the memories were filled with fun and joyful moments. The best friend, girls, secrets, scientific researches... Laurel was even the leader of the legendary troll army world quantum network, having fun hacking on different servers and abuse of thousands of different front pages. Oh, how much mess they caused! And if it became known by sure that the instigator of all this ugliness was a 14-year-old troll with nickname «Big brother», aka Laurel, aka the current Kyon - all his company would certainly get into trouble.
That was the wonderful time... The Tests that his mentors gave him, became more and more difficult, so that by the age of 12 he broke into the Master's degree(4), and at the age of 16 he obtained the degree of Candidate of Sciences(5), which made Laurel the most successful and brilliant man of his generation.
{It was amusing...} – these memories caused a sheepish smile Kyon couldn't hold back, so that the miners pa.s.sed by miners contemptuously snorted:
{Moron, f.u.c.king dummy, he rejoices at the start of the work week…}
The young man did not pay any attention to these gloomy muzzles – nothing could spoil his good mood.
Soon, all the slaves gathered in the living room. Kyon, taking the backpack with meals, hastened for the general flow of people. The supervisors collected their groups which were stumping for jobs altogether. After greeting Osip, the young man stood up with the other miners. He defiantly winked ill-starred little man, who was not lucky to witness the disappearance of Kyon. He spotted Mike ahead of him - the man looked much healthier than yesterday, and with swallowed his rations with a good appet.i.te.
They reached the checkpoint, and other groups were waiting in line for food. At the distribution there was a disgruntled Bob because his constant partner Mob brazenly s.h.i.+rked from work. Black dog Rogash was habitually cheerful and was lying on the floor hugging a tasty marrowbone near his master.
{That a.s.shole is late, I have to do double work because of him.} – muttered Bob in his mind, recording incoming group in the log and giving the supervisors for 10 rations with water.
When it was Osip's turn, he was given only 9 rations. It once again confirmed Kyon's guess - his person was erased from the database. He warned his supervisor in advance not to make a fuss – after all, he had plenty of food, but to get into trouble with his superiors now was absolutely useless.
After checking in at the checkpoint, the ninth group went deep into the mine. The rails creaked underfoot, the supporting wooden beams rose at an equal distance from each other, marked with different symbols, crystals gleamed in the
Upon arrival at the workplace, the miners habitually dispersed each to his point. Osip approached Kyon and gave him the tools – sieve and something resembling a compa.s.s, and began coaching him:
«So, I appoint you a sorter. Those four are turning the grinder, and your task will be search for amber stones among the crushed rocks, dig them out of ore and put in a separate place. Got it?»
The guy nodded and went to the four miners, who had alreadystarted to twist the mechanism looked like a millstone.
Contemplating this simple technology, Kyon mentally lamented: {Oh G.o.d, are we in the middle ages? Why is the ore crushed by hand? Why didn't they install an elementary selection mechanism that would replace hundreds of workers?}
The work itself was very simple. The men brought buckets of crushed ore, and Kyon and two other guys had to break them and get out amber stones, and then, clearing them of excess rock, put in another bucket. And so on again and again…
For a while Kyon just watched the work of the other two selectors to figure out what to do. Their pace was indecently low - the young man, with his skills, would perform the daily rate for some 2-3 hours, instead of the 15.
Hiding the backpack in a secluded place, Kyon curiously fished a translucent pebble out of the bucket. He tried to scan it with the Synergy, but for some reason amber was reluctant to let the energy in. The guy was never able to figure out what the rock was consisted of and what its structure was consisted of - the smoky substance inside was not allowed to properly explore the amber.
Suddenly the stone began to vibrate. Kyon threw it right away, after which it exploded with the force of small firecrackers. When the dust settled, it turned out that there left nothing of the amber stone.
The man, the eternal witness of the oddnesses of the boy, and this time stayed away from the «thick of things» and needed to turn around precisely at the moment when Kyon rushed to get rid of the strange stone. His eyes immediately climbed out of their sockets, the jaw went on a fascinating journey to the floor – and Kyon just defiantly put a finger to his lips, giving a sign that the man had to keep silence. The man gulped with fear, he had not meant that would talk too much, he was too afraid of this creepy guy.
Osip, who was hanging around nearby, immediately rode to the source of the roar to understand what had happened. Having interrogated the workers closest to the scene and not having achieved a more or less intelligible answer, he had to return to his post, wondering in his mind what it could have been.
{What is the reaction to my Synergy? How is that possible?} - Kyon was in shock, no matter in his past world might produce such a reaction.
Having reflected a bit, Kyon suggested, that these amber stones were crystallized energy of this world, which were used as currency and as many other useful means. He had read about it in books.
If you collect a handful of ore and activate them, they are magnetic to each other and create a perfect sphere of 1x1 cm. No impurities... nothing extra... Perfectly round ball.
The spheres of the base area are translucent, pale white. Spheres of advanced area are amber, translucent. Of the highest are purple, translucent, at least so they are described in the books.
Kyon realized that he destabilized its frequency after which it collapsed.
{If the process is not instantaneous, it can probably be controlled.} Putting a note on the subject in his head, the young man took another tiny amber stone and carefully poured the Synergy in it. Trying to resonate with the stone by his Synergy, Kyon noticed that the difficulty of pa.s.sing through it had disappeared. Now it was as easy as penetrate the air.
{Haha, engagiing.} - the guy smiled.
Having found out enough, he got to work. Just after 15 minutes, the other two of his companions for sorting out had forgotten about their own sieves and stared at the frail boy who cleared the amber from rocks with lightning speed and managed in such a way to fill a quarter of a bucket. Osip, who was also closely watching the work of the newcomer, happily rubbing his hands: it seemed to him that he might be waiting for a considerable profit on account of interest from this guy.
The men who crushed the ore, were not in time for time for the guy who deprived his 2 partners from the sorting work.
Osip, seeing loafers, rubbing the back of their heads, instantly appointed them to turn stone grinder. Now Kyon was the only sorter for the whole group. The rest of them could only look at him frowningly – still, it was much more difficult to turn the grinder than to rummage in pebbles.
So it took 2 hours. Kyon had already fulfilled the daily norm, and after that only wiped the sweat from his forehead, and only then bothered to notice how others look at him.
Osip was rejoicing while counting in the mind oncoming revenues, grabbed the hand of the guy and shook it excitedly:
«You... you are a monster! How can you do it!?»
«I just had a good rest.» - with a smile waved Kyon and decided that it was time to have lunch.
Having taKyon seat on the more or less clean place he saluted the bucket with the explosive amber which was standing next him with the sandwhich and proceeded to his lunch.
Meanwhile, there appeared Mob at the entrance to whom instantly rushed angry Bob:
«How long should I wait for you, after all!»
However, the second did not even begin to justify himself, with a face glowing with happiness, he kindly slapped his friend on the shoulder:
«Well, well! Don't get mad, you'll explode! Next time, you will be able to sleep a little longer, and I'll work for you. Tell me, have you seen Kyon?»
«He left with Osip... And why? Are you going to work! Hey, where are you going?!» - the last words already flew in a back of the leaving supervisor.
«I have a matter of urgent importance, so be so kind as to work for two for now! I'll pay you back later.»
…
Nine people marched resolutely to the working abode of Osip. Among them were two brothers who failed to have time to fight Kyon, Babil and his loyal guardian dogs, John, the former supervisor of the guy and three more trusted persons of the lender.
Interests of this group differed, but the common goal was to beat the impudent young man who dared to cross their roads so boldly and steal his money.
Their plan was quite simple. They persuaded the supervisor to distract Byron, so that he would be able to prevent them from quickly beating the guy beat unmercifully. One more turn and they saw a group of Osip.
Having seen Babil and his gang, the miners hurriedly left their jobs and took their feet away from the upcoming brawl. Everyone perfectly understood for whom had come the bouncers, but, alas, to render a.s.sistance the guy was not in their power, not to mention that many of them would beat him themselves.
Osip, looking up from some doc.u.ments and noticing the strangers, angrily yelled:
«Hey, what the f.u.c.k do you want!? Byron and supervisors are coming! You all will be punished as h.e.l.l!»
The leader of the group, Babil, without stopping, cheerfully dropped in his high voice:
«Osip, old man, we have no disagreements, so get out of here, we just need the young man.»
Kyon, having seen the big group of headbreakers and kneecrashers, got frowned.
{Not good...} there flashed a short and disappointing thought related to the low chances of his survival. It is obvious that sooner or later he would be come for, but 9 of them at once was too much. According to his estimations and common sense, nine ugly mugs was too much for one boy. Alas, but he had not had an opportunity to get ready to such a visit of the crowd. Just bunch of prepared stones was resting behind the rock.
The guy did not waste the precious seconds and immediately ducked behind the rock and took the first heavy stone. It was nice that his body became a little bit stronger, some might added.
«Bad mother f.u.c.kers, I'm warning you not to approach! He's a member of my group, on what grounds should I give him to you on a platter? Do you realize what will happen to you!?» - Osip was not going to retreat so easily. It was one thing, he promised his friend Byron protect Kyon, but another, that guy turned out to be a real golden mine! And this changed the situation radically!
Babil did not argue, just quietly told his guards:
«Knock him out, he'll be hindering us.»
Dogs, heeding the command, «Attack», began approaching Osip from two sides.
«Hey, guys, what are you up to?...» - having noticed mugs' maneuver, the supervisor took the defending position, trying not to show fear.
Kyon, sensibly decided that the best defense was the attack, did not waste any time and threw a stone to a guard's head.
*bang*
The sh.e.l.l had found its target and hit the man right on the bald head. The bull fell to the floor; he did not pa.s.s out, but only shrank into a ball, clutching his bruised head and howling in pain.
Babil, having noticed the emerged guy, immediately shouted to his hangers-on:
«Catch that son of a b.i.t.c.h! He took our money!»
The four of them immediately rushed to attack while Babil and the two others blocked the only exit. The second guard was still lying on the floor, and the first did not dare to turn his back to Osip who was ready to attack. Other workers secretly spied on what was happening, but did not dare to intervene – Osip and the boy clearly was not worth for them to take such a risk.
John waving his pood fists menacingly, was approaching Kyon with an malicious smile:
«Come here, daddy will punish you for your misdeeds!»
The young man did not accept the threat and managed to throw two more stones. This time, one of the stones..h.i.t the forehead of some supervisor who fell like dead, unconscious on the floor, but the second sharp stone flew straight into the grinning face of John. Unfortunately, he still managed to react and dodged – however, a sharp edge of rock still hooked on it. A piece of auricle with a nasty slurp fell to the ground, splattering blood around him.
«YOU Sc.u.m! I am going to kill you!» - shouted the man, holding in one hand the broKyon-up ear; his other hand took out his stone hammer from his belt. He wasn't going to hold his horses any longer.