Читать книгу I’ve brought you God! - - Страница 6

She pulled up to the gate of an apartment complex, got off the bike, took off her helmet and fastened it behind the seat. Then she placed the control fob in a special compartment on the dashboard, and the bike turned around and drove off on its own. The witch entered the wicket and walked towards the high-rise building.

– Batu! – She shouted, closing the door to the apartment behind her.

The young man appeared in the doorway leading to the living room.

– My boy, you’ve been waiting for me! – rejoiced the witch, taking off her boots and exoskeleton. At that moment, the sword caught on the frame of the exoskeleton, magnetized, and fell to the ceramic floor with a crash. – I can’t get used to having to unbuckle my katana before I can remove the amplifier,» Tamura smiled.

– I was brought here yesterday and told to wait. They said not to touch anything and that you would be here soon. I didn’t know what to do. So I just stood there at first, and then I got very tired and sat on the floor.

– What a nightmare! You must be very hungry?

– Yes, but I’m much more thirsty.

– What beasts! – commented the witch, tattoos of tears streaming down her face. She walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water.

The guy greedily started drinking, gulping loudly.

– I still have some egg tart left somewhere and some milk. Here! – she handed Bat a plastic container and a bag of milk. – There’s a dining table over there in the kitchen. Sit down and eat in peace. But don’t be in a hurry. Give me some milk too. Get some glasses from the dishwasher. Should be clean if I remembered to turn it on. I’ll go to the bathroom, take off my robe and come to you. – She smiled and disappeared out the door.

Batu ate all the cake, drank the milk and poured himself some more. At that moment Tamura appeared without her overalls. Her entire lean body was tightly encased in a thin gray bodysuit with a silvery glow. On her feet were huge teddy bear-shaped slippers.

– Do you like me? – she smiled and, without waiting for an answer from the shocked young man with milk trickling down his chin, she said: – I’ll walk like this for now. Let the cobweb breathe. She’s very young. – Then she picked up her glass with milk and held it out to Batu: -It’s my birthday today, and I am very happy.

Batu obediently held out his glass and, stammering a little, replied:

– Congratulations!

– Look,“ Tamura sipped some milk and set the glass down. – „On a related note, there will be a celebration for the occasion at a restaurant today. The female employees are invited. And you’ll wait for me here, okay? You can watch TV. I’ll come in drunk and I’ll want a little extra. And we’ll have a drink. You’re 18, right? There’s a bar over there. In the fridge, cut up some appetizers. You already know where to find the dishes. In the meantime, I’ve got two hours and I’ve got some work to do. You want to come with me?

– Can I ask you a question? – the guy was clearly crumpled.

– Of course he was.

– What do I call you?

– That’s a good question, Batou! – she thought for a few seconds. – Lucy. You can call me Lucy. That’s what they called me when I was a little girl.

– Lucy, can I ask you something else?

– Go ahead, Batou. You can do a lot of things.

– Will I be old forever?

– You’re not old, Batou. Don’t worry. Mitsu injected a toxin that caused your adrenal glands to release a massive amount of cortisol into your bloodstream. Your body reacted to the tremendous instantaneous stress accordingly. Your hair turned gray and your face showed deep expression lines. Now you looked like a grown man. – She lowered her voice and, looking away, added: – Though usually one dies from this, and it looks very spectacular. It’s like the person instantly aged and died writhing in unspeakable horror. I have a couple clips of this spectacle on my channel. – She raised her head and smiled broadly. – But you, as you can see, are alive and well! In time, the wrinkles will smooth out, and the gray hair will go away with the growth of new hair. And you’ll look like a young man with a pretty face again. – She patted his cheek.

Batu turned to the small mirror hanging on the refrigerator and ran his fingers through his wrinkles and hair. He paused for a moment, looking at himself, and then asked:

– Where did you take the people yesterday? You know, the ones who were praying in the gym.

– That’s a bad question and obviously unnecessary. Batu, my little man, in this cruel but very fragile world, you will have to survive someday without me. Please make it a rule in life that curiosity is your greatest enemy. Curiosity is sometimes worse than any religion. But I’m gonna answer you. Those who weren’t killed in a raid were executed in the Coven’s cellars. And you’re on that list, too. That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? And the pastor turned out to be crazy. Not only was he bipolar, he had the plague. Hiding a colony of dead bacteria under his shirt. I can get you a statement of his condition. I shot him myself. Now come on, I’ll teach you a forgotten but useful skill.

She led him into a small room, half of which was occupied by a huge table with a hinged top shelf along its length. Scattered on the table were thin wires in multicolored sheaths, a few paper packages of resistors. In the middle, closer to the wall, stood a soldering station. And in the center lay an electronic device, which was a thin ring of copper wire and a black square flat block inside it. Tamura lit the table lamp-transformer on the bracket and turned on the soldering station, on whose indicator the temperature reading began to increase rapidly until it reached the value of three hundred and ninety-eight. Then she pressed the buttons to turn on the oscilloscope and the universal power supply.

– Take that chair over there and sit next to it. – She sat down on a high computer chair, put on thin glasses with diopters, took out tin and rosin from the box and began to solder the coil wires to the contacts of the black block.

– This is the controller with the solenoid. And here is the armature of the pulse electromagnet, – she pointed to the black block. – It is tuned to a strictly defined frequency and gives out a powerful two-second magnetic pulse, attracting everything that works at the same frequency. Right there, look. See the contact? Good eyesight?

– I see it.

– Hold the soldering iron. Not by the working part, you know. Dip the tip in rosin and tin the contact. Run it while the stinger is wet. Good job. And your hands are not shaking like mine. Now grab some tin with the stinger and tin the contact. You’re doing a good job. Now do the same with this wire. That’s good. Now, use a clothespin to connect the wire to the contact and hold it in place for a second with the tin. Holy cardiologists! You have a gift!

– Did you get it? – The kid’s eyes are glistening.

– Let’s check it out. Go get the box, it’s on the table in the hallway.

– Now,» Batu jumped off the chair and a moment later was holding the box in his hand, shaking it up and down. – It’s heavy.

– Well, unpack it quickly!

He opened the package and pulled out a black starfish, rotating it in his hand and examining it.

– The body was made of a self-sharpening composite alloy, and inside was the same electromagnet, only miniaturized. About the size of a dime. The beams are weighted. Activate it, here’s the jumper. Put it on the table. Now we connect the minus to the trap. – She’s connected the black wire to the block terminal. – And the plus side, we’ll just tap the contact. – The sprocket on the table snapped off and immediately magnetized itself to the block platform. And the whole structure was thrown off the table with force. – Not bad?!

– It’s still on it,» said Batu, picking up the sprocket block and trying to tear it off.

– Yes, we need to adjust the resting position. We’ll apply short, weak electromagnetic radiation so that the sprockets just hold onto the block and can be easily ripped off. – Tamura knitted a thin long screwdriver and turned the slot of the tuning resistor through the narrow hole. – And since they would be stacked there, each sprocket would duplicate the induction to the next sprocket. Now let’s solder the button.

The witch closed the block with the lid and began to screw the screws around the perimeter of the platform. And, not having tightened the last three, she looked around the table for the missing ones. Then she turned over an iron coffee can and shook out the contents. There she began tweezing through the various nuts, springs, and screws looking for the right size.

– All right! – she gave up. – No more screws. I’ll have to go to Luis’ tomorrow. – Then the witch put on her battle suit belt and fastened the grip block to it with a leather clasp. She pulled the remaining stars out of the box and turned to the boy: «Put them in different places around the room. Let’s see how they all fly.

Batu took the shurikens and carefully placed them around the room. The witch stood in the center of the room, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled sharply and pressed a button. In the same second, all of the stars promptly tore towards Tamura. Three of them didn’t quite make a clear shot, but still hit the capture platform. The rest of the shurikens struck the witch’s body from different directions and knocked her to the floor. Tamura cried out in pain and turned around sharply. The remaining stars slid down her body and were safely magnetized to the block.

– Oh, come on! – she shouted. – I’ve just been stitched up!

Batu stood motionless nearby, watching the witch writhing in pain.

– Can I help you? – he asked suddenly.

– The cigarettes are in the kitchen, in a sugar can over the stove,» Tamura replied, taking off her shuriken belt and lying on her back. – Light one, please.

Batu held out a lit cigarette. The witch took a deep drag and began groping herself.

– Looks like all the ribs are intact. – It’s all down below. Stomach and flanks are bruised. Spider armor saved me from being torn and wounded. Why didn’t I anticipate the trajectory? They fly in a straight line. Good thing I didn’t get hit in the head! And they were just lying there, so they didn’t have time to build up momentum. What if they’d been stuck somewhere? Yeah. I should put a copper loop around my waist with reverse polarity around the perimeter. So they’d go around me. I’m gonna throw them on the run. Why didn’t life teach me that? I think six reels will be enough. I wish I had more and more often, but I don’t have that many. How much time do we have, Batou?

– A little over an hour.

– We’ll make it! – shouted the witch, jumped to her feet, pulled a shelf out of the nightstand and turned it over on the table. She selected a few coils from the contents, soldered them in series and attached them to her belt with nylon ties. She soldered the remaining ends to the contacts of the electromagnet armature.

– You solder well and quickly,» said Batu, watching Tamura’s skillful work. – You must be an engineer by training?

– Come here,» the witch said and put the belt on the boy. He opened his mouth and blinked his eyes.

– Don’t piss! I’ve got it all worked out! The coils will work in counter-phase with the anchor and create a scattered electromagnetic field. While the anchor will attract the shurikens, the belt will repel them. The sprockets will fly in a circle without touching you.

– But there are only four coils! And you said you needed six!

– That should be enough. If you need anything, I’ll call CPR. You’re supposed to be in a black bag in the basement of the morgue right now. I’m the one who saved you. So don’t worry about it. I saved you yesterday, and I’ll save you now. Come on, breathe deep or you’re gonna pass out.

The witch quickly took the stars and deftly scattered them around the room. The shurikens easily penetrated any surface and stuck deeply into doors, window frames, furniture, and walls. Batu shouted something, squatted down and covered his head with his hands. Tamura pressed the controller button with the big toe of her right foot and jumped back sharply into the corner of the room. The shurikens reacted instantly, bursting out of the surfaces and rushing towards the electromagnet, circling Batu. Immediately, a series of clicks were heard – the controller had successfully magnetized all fourteen stars.

– Beaver, exhale! – said the witch. – It worked out even better than I thought. Would you like a cigarette?

Batu uncurled and fell back on his heel. He swallowed and cried. His hands were shaking feverishly. He took a cigarette, took a drag and coughed.

– Let me go, please,» he whimpered.

– What’s the matter, kid? – The witch sat down beside him and began to stroke his hair. – It hurts me, and you are crying. Well, I’ll let you go. Where will you go? According to all the databases, you’re a dead terrorist. The city’s facial recognition system will identify you instantly. Then they’ll take you to the Coven and torture you. The high witch has a personal demon. He’ll burn you alive. And if he doesn’t, a pagan witch will take you in for testing. With her prophetic whispers, she’ll give you horrible hallucinations. And there is also an old woman who once soaked her hands in the river of hell Kokitos, and now they are constantly forming sores that bubble and burst, releasing into the air the virus of damnation for a particular person – on whom she will point a single finger. And the person turns into a zombie. Kills first his mom, then the rest of his family, and then himself. It’s a terrible fate. But you’re healthy, fed and almost safe with me. Look what we’re gonna do. We will find me an evening dress, you will help me tidy up: comb my hair, choose a hairpin, pick up a manicure, put in a cab and wait. At night I’ll arrive drunk, you’ll undress me and give me a massage. You’ll caress my legs, my back, my shoulders. And in the morning we’ll decide what to do with you. Okay? – Tamura bit down on part of her lower lip, and the tattoo on the witch’s face took the shape of dripping tears again. – Please!

Batu closed his eyes and nodded his head.