I needed to think about something cheerful. What was nice in my life? My motorcycle, short-term anonymous glory, my cute zombie-dog, Lyuchik who wanted to tell me something—all day long he had been bobbing around me. The two scoundrels searched for something, but what? Family honor required me to find and seize the treasure. By now every heartbeat in my chest caused sharp pain, my dried up eyes burned, and a string of pictures from the past day (so bright!) floated in my mind, mixing with episodes of the busy last year, events of the previous summer, recollections of the first meeting with Rustle.
I got scared only after realizing that I was staring at myself from outside, from the ruins, bottom-up.
Chapter 17
The auditors from the capitol did arrive, as Mr. Satal predicted, but Locomotive was not afraid of them. His office was like a storefront—transparent and shiny; it screamed, “Look, but don’t touch.” The rigorous auditors would see papers in ideal order, friendly clerks, guards in polished uniforms, and an almost complete absence of rank at the office: everyone was on an assigned task. NZAMIPS was snowed under with work!
Never before had so many operatives obtained vacations in early summer…
Locomotive did not deceive himself: had the auditors set a goal to get to him, they could have easily found or invented a case. Perhaps, that occasion wouldn’t be serious enough for a full internal investigation; in the worst case, it would lead to a reprimand or a record of “incomplete conformity”. Unpleasant, too, but he was used to that. No one could hang blame on him for the appearance of the banned potion on the market.
Judging by the displeasure with which the auditors examined the results of the police investigation, they were well aware of the situation. Yes, the case of dragon tears had already gone to court. Ms. Kevinahari had given the captain a tip, and the lab was quickly caught red-handed; however, the mastermind of that crime had fled and, by Locomotive’s estimation, was already quietly killed somewhere. Such failures could not be pardoned. In the hands of NZAMIPS investigators there were two haywire white mages and a few small fries who distributed the poison under the guise of a stimulant. Without regret, Captain Baer addressed capitol authorities on the question of how the criminals had gotten the recipe for the most dangerous venom—it was outside his jurisdiction. The villain, declared wanted, had moved to Redstone from the East Coast just a year ago, so let the central office find out what he was doing here.
For the auditing period, Mr. Satal, the senior coordinator of the region, defiantly left the city; upon returning, he was astonishingly well-informed about everything that had happened.
“We got off easy,” Mr. Satal briefly summarized the result. “Captain, I was told that they had a direct order to fire the higher-ups in Redstone’s division but could not find anybody wishing to take your post. So do not consider it a success. The Dark Knight still hangs over our heads, and no empath can predict what he is capable of.”
“It is unlikely that he will do anything crazy,” the captain said thoughtfully. “He has a new source of income now. Why would he run the risk?”
The dark mage glanced at the captain indignantly, and Locomotive regretted that he hadn’t put a protective suit on.
“Confess, you sleazebag, who is it?”
“Uh… a student, I think. I warn you, I have no evidence!”
“To hell with the evidence! Are you sure it’s him?”
The captain shrugged: “He has a non-standard channel of power. He was involved in illegal practices. For three years he lived in a dormitory, paying fifty dollars per semester; now he rents an apartment. He wears suits that cost my monthly salary, each! He is originally from Krauhard. Earlier this year he bought a black motorcycle in the ‘Plaza’.”
Locomotive did not mention the incident with the crystal, nor the fact that he had begun making inquiries only after he had seen a gentleman that the poor scruffy boy, ready to chase brownies for twenty crowns, had turned to.
“Hmm,” Mr. Satal blissfully squinted his eyes. “Introduce him to me!”
“Why?” Locomotive became tense.
“I want to look him in the eyes,” the senior coordinator fidgeted in his chair. “Don’t you understand? He’s a genius! A gold nugget. Forty-four episodes, with no insurance and not a single misfire. Ordinary mages are not capable of such things. Just Tangor the Second, you know!
“Tangor?” the captain stiffened.
“Yes! Tangor was a coordinator about twenty years ago; at the courses he drove our brains up the wall… He served here, too.”
That was why the student’s name seemed so familiar to him! Locomotive strained his memory: “Toder Tangor?”
“Exactly. How do you know?”
“We worked together. I was already a lieutenant then.”
Captain Baer belatedly realized that he was almost twice as old as his boss, and questions of seniority for the dark were a sore topic. But the danger had passed.
Mr. Satal pointedly raised his finger: “He was also a genius!”
“Sorry that he ended badly.”
“All because of his own people,” the coordinator’s face suddenly hardened. “But that will not happen to me!”
The captain politely stayed silent. Everyone has his own hang-ups! However, didn’t Baer himself rave about conspiracy of the elite? They were from the same office, and long service in NZAMIPS used to affect brains of its employees.
“By the way, the student’s name is Tangor. Do you think he is a relative?”
“All the Tangors are relatives, but it’s unlikely that our student is a close one. That coordinator lived in Finkaun.”
Locomotive breathed… and gasped: he did not have enough courage to tell the coordinator of the rewritten crystal.
“What?” Mr. Satal squinted suspiciously.
And people say that the dark mages cannot feel people!
“Aren’t you surprised with all this?” Locomotive blurted the first thing that came into his mind. “I mean the repulsive behavior of the “cleaners”, the ghouls, and dragon tears—all that in one place after ten years of quietness? Keep in mind, I had repeatedly reported about the doings of Grokk, but nobody reacted. As if nothing out of the ordinary was going on. F*ck with him, deceased! Nowadays our prison is overcrowded with dissidents. And what is interesting is that half of them are immigrants. They lived normally somewhere, and then about a year ago decided to move to Redstone. What was the reason? Some kind of festival? Maybe I missed the poster?”
The senior coordinator frowned thoughtfully and folded his palms as if making a house of cards.
“There is an opinion swirling around,” he began cautiously, “that some of the events bear traces of premeditation.”
Who would doubt that!
“Aliens?”
“No, our own people.”
“What do they hope to accomplish?” the captain got interested.
Mr. Satal shrugged: “Power. Wealth. Satisfaction of their brutish instincts. What else can they get by fishing in troubled waters? I don’t know whether you follow politics,” Locomotive chuckled knowingly, “but suggestions to ‘improve’ the social order of Ingernika come regularly.”