Path of the Shaman

3

As the nymphs had promised, it was not difficult to force yourself to take full lungs of this substance. Filling with liquid, the capsule was already moving towards the catapult. I could clearly see how the capsules flowing from different sides were placed on the launch pad in front of me, froze and, having blurred, disappeared. Only by throwing a glance along the guide leading into the sky, one could see the rapidly accelerating silhouettes of vehicles accelerating to several kilometers per second. Here comes my turn. The capsule froze, and then - a barely noticeable push, and I'm flying, and, oddly enough, even the vestibular apparatus is not overloaded with acceleration. Some kind of mystic! Shamanism!

The speed with which the darkness of the sky with the stars flaring up in it was approaching me began to decrease, then the heavenly bodies froze for a few seconds and began to move away. The capsule was gradually enveloped in luminous particles of ionized air. It was very beautiful. Considering that the apparatus itself was transparent, it seemed to me that I was flying in some kind of bubble of light. When this radiance already began to resemble, rather, burning, the ion engine turned on, throwing forward dispersed particles of increasingly dense air. The earth again filled the whole space with itself, the stars completely disappeared, and I saw the lights of the metropolis below, surrounding the historical center of the city of C. The engine turned off, and a small parachute bud opened in the sky, which, under the control of the onboard Iskin, carried me to the brake pipe. A few more seconds - and the capsule smoothly begins to move from the landing table to the side, simultaneously draining the liquid at a pace. Of course, the nymphs told me that the clothes would remain absolutely dry, and somewhere even cleaned, but I didn’t believe it until I could personally see how, just before opening the hatch of the capsule, steam poured from me in all directions, instantly disappeared somewhere in the folds of the ventilation system. Another nymph, smiling, tore the hatch and asked me on duty if I liked the trip. What trip? Eight minutes is not a journey. Yes, I'll pick out the teleport scroll from the bag for longer! By the way, where is he? until I could see for myself how, just before opening the hatch of the capsule, steam poured out from me in all directions, instantly disappearing somewhere in the folds of the ventilation system. Another nymph, smiling, tore the hatch and asked me on duty if I liked the trip. What trip? Eight minutes is not a journey. Yes, I'll pick out the teleport scroll from the bag for longer! By the way, where is he? until I could see for myself how, just before opening the hatch of the capsule, steam poured out from me in all directions, instantly disappearing somewhere in the folds of the ventilation system. Another nymph, smiling, tore the hatch and asked me on duty if I liked the trip. What trip? Eight minutes is not a journey. Yes, I'll pick out the teleport scroll from the bag for longer! By the way, where is he?

Surprisingly, my little nymph joys did not end there. The heavenly nymph, gently holding me by the elbow, so that I would not escape from their tenacious nymph paws, handed me over to the earthly nymph. Or what are they like? Forest? Yes, and not one, but a whole group of forest nymphs. Obviously their eldest approached me, who, even with her student age, clearly stood out against the background of yesterday's graduates. Well, a flower garden! And all this for the sake of one low-level Shaman? I don't believe it, somebody pinch me! Here you are, girl, for example!

- Hello Dmitry! My name is Georgina, but I prefer Georgette! She didn't pinch me, but held out her hand in a businesslike way. — Did you like our corporate shuttle?

"Korben, Korben, say something!"

— Uh-uh… Awesome! I decided to show off my eloquence.

— We are very glad to host you in our city. Let me introduce my team, the girls will help you with the initial arrangement, so that you don’t need anything in any case, - the leader of the nymphs waved her hand: - These are Eva, Lisa, Muse, Zhanna, Polina, Nikola, Clara, Laura and Maria .

— Is it true? - I tried not to bulge my eyes too much, but they still fell out of their sockets. “What…extraordinary variety!”

Jeanette laughed merrily.

“No, I chose them on purpose by their names,” I sang a stupid song. - Exactly! the nymph confirmed. - Well, let's go? - gracefully moving the handle, she indicated the direction for me, but here I already went on principle, not allowing the ladies to go through the door after me. If someone thinks that I just wanted to conduct a visual examination of the business qualities of office workers from the back ... Hmm ...

To be honest, when I signed up for the penthouse, I had no idea that everything would be so neglected. It all started with a separate - personal - elevator with a leather armchair and a TV. This led me to think that the elevator apparently gets stuck every day, and without a TV - in any way. In addition, there was a feeling that, wish Jeanette ... ugh, Georgette! Wish Georgette to hire three times as many employees, they would still be able to do aerobics in this room without any problems. A modest entrance hall fifty meters down, descending in steps into the living room, which on three sides had only floor-to-ceiling windows and a pair of doors to a vast terrace. The latter was covered with a wooden deck between flower beds, on which were placed sun loungers and tables, so that the feet did not get tired of meeting the dawn, and a Japanese Jacuzzi on the side. At the same time, the terrace was even lower than the level of the living room, almost not blocking the view of the city. Even my little weaknesses were foreseen, and at one of the windows there was a very decent telescope for observing the neighbors' windows. Yes, yes, “and you climb on the closet!”

Why do I need five bedrooms, I never understood. I wish I was a poor student, constantly inviting friends to parties in my penthouse - but no! A small gym with exercise equipment and a spacious room with a capsule and a computer with a wall-to-wall screen. Why do I need exercise equipment if I have a capsule? I whispered my thoughts to Georgette, and she made a note on her palm where the screen of her bracelet was projected. Muse tried my gastronomic tastes for a long time, after which she went to place an order, Laura-Loretta asked in a languid voice what I was wearing ... That is, what I usually wear. In general, listened to my wishes about the wardrobe. Lisa, seeing the confusion on my face, said that according to the contract, the Corporation takes all the costs of moving and settling on me, so I have nothing to worry about until the expiration of the period of accommodation in a month. Eva led me into the kitchen and asked if they had chosen the right coffee maker for me. Well, of course you are right! Seeing this treasure, I was so moved that I even climbed up to hug the taken aback girl. In the refrigerator I found a set of bags of grains from around the world, donated by the supplier of the machine, and I joyfully began to grind Sumatran, while looking at the Kenyan with one eye and the Brazilian with the other. Polina barely managed to catch a kopi luwak on the fly, which I launched towards the trash can. When I said that she could take it for herself, if only I didn’t see this delicacy here anymore, she almost climbed into me to hug me herself. The next half hour was spent in the company of nymphs scurrying back and forth for thoughtful coffee tasting. Nicola recorded my grades and promised that the right coffee would be in the refrigerator before morning. Masha Marietta showed how to activate two cleaning robots. Clara and Zhanna all this time got in the way of their colleagues, creating a festive turmoil. Finally, all wishes were taken into account, compliments were recorded, and the kittens were drowned. At the exit, Yvette threw a couple of eloquent glances at me, but I just spread my arms with a smile - time does not wait! Maybe some other time. Not at a loss, she furtively touched my bracelet, passing the phone number. Saying goodbye, a cheerful company left my fragile shack. I stood thoughtfully at the mirror, ignoring the not yet very familiar large and muscular man with a short haircut and light unshaven cheeks, who responded to me with outrageous inattention to my person.

* * *

Hmm... Thinking is, of course, one thing, but doing it, as it turns out, is quite another. As soon as I sat down at the computer, I realized that being under the hood of Muller is the height of freedom and liberalism. Moreover, the fact that I officially agreed to use the equipment of the Corporation did not change anything. If I flew halfway around the world and sat down at a console in some Internet cafe in the favelas of Sao Paolo, polite but unsmiling people would still come after me in five minutes. What do we have here? Screen and keyboard logger, triple redundancy of logs in the game, Iskin to decipher communications with the outside world and visual observation from that house three kilometers away. May they all be healthy! I sighed. You'll have to print the stash. One of.

I put my hands under the pillow in my lap and typed the cherished address on the bracelet in the palm of my hand. A few seconds later, my wrist communicator beeped, giving me a confirmation code. Now he is clean. Iskin on the other end launched the program I had laid down and demolished the logger on the bracelet. Excellent. In order to continue, his screen should have been enough, but there was no way to shine it. It's worth the security guards of the Corporation to look over my shoulder at a time when I'm busy ., and I will never see another early release from the mines, no matter how Pronto wishes it. I rolled up the screen, picked up a glossy magazine with scantily clad girls on the cover from the table, and headed to the toilet, which was the only place not equipped with surveillance equipment. The difficulty, of course, was that the toilet was completely isolated from the wireless network, but here a piece of almost completely transparent conductive fishing line, secretly brought from home, helped me.

Feigning full dedication of "my soul and muscles to work," I began to feverishly fight my way through Barliona's defenses. According to my calculations, I had a little more than five minutes until the onlookers came to their senses to fix the tracking system on the bracelet. Of course, he will warn me about this, but the matter will not remain completed! Two minutes have passed and I haven't even made it through the outer circle yet. Finally. Two fifteen. Badly. There are at least two more left. And almost immediately, another one. Lucky. Three zero seven is the third. Three twenty-nine is the fourth. Three forty-five - I'm in Barliona. Now at the pace to d******d my bookmark. Ha. And connecting something along the line is slow! Tick-tock, tick-tock! Four forty two! Unacceptably long! At the pace, I enter the code word, exit the connection, return the tracking program to its place and disconnect the fishing line. According to the traces left by the telecom operator, all these five minutes I was offline. Having washed off the water, I mentally wished the doctor a pleasant evening spent analyzing the tests.

Now at the pace of the waltz - into the capsule. I need to destroy traces of hacking very quickly, that is, simply clean the logs. No, of course, the hack itself was carried out from a remote virtual server, the last in the chain of brothers, and they were all destroyed, “disembodied”, as soon as I gave the command to my bracelet. Yes, and the bookmark in Barliona was unaddressed, and for activation it was necessary to say a code phrase, after which the one who accidentally said it would still not find any changes. I closed the lid, plunging into the virtual world, and the emblem of the clan appeared in front of me. The pain of loss whipped through his wounded heart like a fiery scourge.