couldn’t tell me before? Before I shot him,» she paused and added. – Today, does everyone remember?
– They do,» Eira replied. – I did another mailing. I might be a little late myself. I’m on the air. I want both of you in my office now. Call Cataleya, too
***
The phone on the High Witch’s desk was crawling with vibrations and bursting with the sounds of an incoming call.
– Aren’t you going to answer it? – Tamura asked. – A call from Pride. Could it be the Alpha himself calling?
– I don’t have anything to answer them yet,» Eira said and turned off the ringing tone. She lit a match, lit a cigarette, and exhaled a heavy puff of pink smoke. – Any idea what that was about?
– I’ll go first, may I? – Ruta asked, glancing questioningly at the dark witch.
– Of course! – she said. – The young are the way to go! You said something about an alien stagnum.
– I am the oldest of the witches,“ she began, „and I learned to see stagnum with my eyes a long time ago. Remember when I told you that every stagnum has a color? Not just one color, but a small palette. And the colors in this palette vibrate, passing from one shade to another, with some impermanent frequency. The desires and intentions of man and society are impermanent, and so the vibration appears. The vector of influence on reality also jumps around a bit, like the arrow of a compass. And all this is within the yellow and orange color. Because everyone has the same desires and fears. Everyone wants power, luxury, love, health and not to die of radiation sickness. Even radical religious fanatics don’t have much difference in the color of their stagnum structure. Because we’re all human. We share the same physiology of quantum thinking. As a species. Pure anatomy. Turns out that’s not true.
– What are you saying? The old man’s stagnum isn’t orange? He’s crazy! What kind of stagnum would a crazy person have?
– It’s very strong. And it’s black. Yes, yes! It’s black like a space howler. And the best part is, it’s not his stagnum. It’s like someone temporarily gave the old man a new, hitherto unknown, black stagnum.
– Is that possible? – The High Witch asked. – So he came into contact with a person whose stagnum enriched his own? The messiah?
– I don’t know. But it would seem so.
– The origin of the plague knight on the chest of the deceased is an artifact of exposure to an alien stagnum,» the dark witch commented. – Hmmm… that explains it quite well. Shall we turn to the blind witches?
– You will,» the commander confirmed. – I need this messiah. Alive, if possible. And he’s your passenger now. I understand that the temptation to kill him on the spot you have above the regulations of operative-search activity. But I think the word «national security» still means something to you. – She turned to Ruta. – Want to guess?
– No!
– Wow! Why so strict? – Tamura asked.
– I don’t cast futhark anymore.
– Why not?
– Because the last few times I’ve thrown it, it’s been falling like a copycat – the same every time. And every time, it shows the exodus.
– The Jews out of Egypt? – Tamura asked.
– My exodus. I don’t know how to interpret it. All I know is that it is not death. The runes refused to tell me anything else. Exodus, every time.
– Maybe you broke them.
– Would you stop sneering? – Eira interrupted the dark witch. – What do you think?
– Can I keep Thomas? – Tamura asked cautiously.
– What?
– We have Thomas running on the Coven servers. Nobody uses it anyway. Can I keep him?
– Thomas? You mean Coven’s voice assistant? It’s available online to any witch at any time. What’s wrong with it? And why are you going off topic?
– I’d tweak it a bit, customize it, add a backup structure, hot backup on cloud clusters.
– Aren’t you living a little too frugally, Major Hogan? Do you remember how much that animated face tattoo cost Coven?
– I did it with Katelea. I never would have gotten it myself.
– Don’t blame it all on me,» said the extremely beautiful woman sitting in the corner, waving her comb. – My animation is kopechechnaya and changes only the makeup. And yours – with a full-fledged animation on the whole face. And it costs like a cast-iron bridge.
– Come on, animation! – Eira continued. – And the smart metal exoskeleton? And portable batteries with a thousand and a half amperes? When you charge them, there’s a power outage within a ten-kilometer radius. Now you want a personal server with an institutional neural network, and tomorrow what? A space spy satellite with remote DNA sensors?
– Why, do we already have one of those?
– No way! If you don’t like the voice assistant, bring it to the committee. This meeting’s over. I still have to prepare a report for Pride and go on the air.
At that moment the front door opened and a tall, thin old woman in a black cloak and a purple hood on her head appeared in the doorway.
– Dropped from the accounts,“ she sang in a tinkling yet velvety voice. Then, leaning on a gnarled staff, she slowly waddled to an empty chair and pulled it out with a club, „No longer needed, huh? – she asked, sitting down.
– Calm down, Snot! – Eira replied. – You are the wisest of witches. You are the wisest of witches. We only call you for important matters. We pity you. You’re in poor health. You’re not a girl anymore.
– Aha! Old, huh? – She slowly turned to the light witch and extended her hand. A shaking charred finger appeared from under her sleeve. – I’m no older than that bitch.
– Get your damn finger away from me, you old bitch! – Ruta screamed and jumped on the table. She grabbed her chair by the back and threw it at the old woman. – Why aren’t you dead?!
Rune tried to dodge, but failed. She was caught by the chair leg and fell to the floor with it. The light witch took short strides across the table and jumped on the old woman, clamping her throat with her knee and stepping on her toe with the heel of her other foot.
– Give me the knife! – She shouted and reached back toward Tamura. – I’m going to cut off that damn toe and send her into retirement!
– It’s so funny to watch what you do,“ the dark witch replied with a wide grin. – „You’re like Joseph Barbera and William Hanna. I’d give a knife, honestly. But I’m only wearing a robe.
Ruta
