Karimor was not Skeldar. In Skeldar, the snow was white, pure, and its silence healed the wounds of the soul. Here, in the streets of a small, godforsaken town, the snow was gray, soaked with soot, and smelled of low-quality fuel and burning. Silence here did not mean peace; it meant that someone was just zeroing in on you through optics or waiting in the shadows with a knife in hand.
Pollux sat in the corner of the station, wrapped in a heavy coat that had long ago lost its original color. In front of him stood an old iron ticket machine, almost an antique, which hummed constantly. For other passers-by, it was just an unpleasant mechanical sound, but for Pollux, it was an irregular, jerky pulse. He perceived it as a sick rhythm that would fall apart at any moment.
He sensed how the worn-out gears inside pushed through with effort and how a static charge was building up in the copper coils. He knew that if someone kicked it in frustration one more time, those delicate, overheated wires inside would connect in a short circuit and the device would definitively "go out." He felt that tingling in his fingers, that invisible electrical force.
"If you stare at it like that for another minute, either that sheet metal will melt, or someone will slit your throat just on the principle that you're weird," a sharp, mocking voice suddenly rang out.
Pollux didn't even turn his head. He felt her before he saw her. Something sharp burned him from behind. He smelled sulfur, nitrates, and something they didn't know in the mountains. The smell of an armed explosive that was ready to expand at any time.
"It's seizing up," Pollux said calmly, running his fingertips over the cold, dirty metal of the machine. "Something inside is... broken. I feel it shaking under the tension. If I move it in the wrong direction now, those indicator lights inside will go out and it will never show me where the last trains are leaving again."
"Trains? Boy, in Karimor all roads lead either to the mine or to the grave. You don't need a machine for that, you just need patience," Ash peeled herself away from the wall and approached him with feline lightness. She was a young woman with blonde hair fluttering in the wind like playful flames with crimson horns that matched her red eyes. She wore old trousers, a worn-out jacket with rolled-up sleeves, and a gray scarf casually wrapped around her neck.
She stood so close that Pollux could smell the scent of old, worn leather mixed with gunpowder. Ash sized him up – his clean, pale face and that silver-adorned knife from Fenryr behind his belt, which shone in this urban mud like a beacon from another world.
"You're from the mountains, right? That stench of sanctimony and fresh air can't be washed off even in this filth," she smirked and demonstratively brushed against the submachine gun that hung loosely on her shoulder.
"Pollux," he introduced himself and finally looked at her. His eyes for a moment caught the rhythm of her weapon. "And that machine of yours... that spring in the feeder. It's crooked, by three millimeters. If you try to use it under stress, it will jam right at the second round. I feel it grating in that metal with every step you take."
Ash froze completely for a moment. Her practiced smile didn't change, but her eyes narrowed dangerously into two thin slits. With a quick, almost imperceptible movement, she checked the mechanism of the weapon. It was true. The spring in the feeder wasn't sitting in the groove. A lucky guess? Or something worse?
"You have a good eye, Pollux of the mountains," she said slowly, and a tone appeared in her voice that boded nothing good. "Or you just have terrible nerve. Do you know what I usually do with people who look too closely at my toys?"
"Nothing, because you're hungry and you need someone who sees around the corner," Pollux replied, and finally managed to release the jammed mechanism of the machine with a gentle, precisely aimed tap. The device growled and spat out a soiled ticket. "And I know where in that building opposite they are just unloading crates of food. Inside it clicked so regularly that I understood from the vibrations in the network when they get coded messages about supplies. We have less than ten minutes before the guards come for the shift change."
Ash gave a short, guttural laugh. It was a sharp, clipped sound in which there was no cheerfulness. "Crates of food? You want to steal supplies from the militia with this..." she pointed to his coat, under which she suspected a pistol, "...piece of iron that you hold so carefully as if you were afraid it would bite you?"
"It won't kill anyone it doesn't have to," Pollux said and stood up. He was slightly taller, but beside her he felt like an inexperienced child beside an armed, unpredictable bomb. "I'm learning. In Skeldar they didn't teach me exactly how the world works where you don't ask for help, but take what is available. So I told myself I'd find someone who looks like the best at it."
Ash sized him up with a look as if she wanted to take him apart into components. "The best? I'm a disaster in progress, sweetheart. But you're right, I'm damn hungry. And you are so far the most interesting thing I've seen in this godforsaken town today. We'll go for those crates. But if you slow me down by even a second, I'll leave you hanging there like an ornament on a fence."
"Deal," Pollux nodded. "And Ash? That thing of yours on your belt... that little glass is glowing red. It irritates my head like whistling. Is it supposed to glow like that?"
Ash looked at the detonator she had unfortunately brushed against while sitting down. She quickly turned it off. "No. It wasn't. You're as annoying as a rusty file, boy. But maybe something will really come of you if this Karimor doesn't eat you for breakfast before you manage to pull out that knife of yours."
The warehouse building was massive, built of thick, crumbling concrete that soaked up moisture and frost like a sponge. On the ramp stood two soldiers in heavy quilted coats. One of them was just shaking a cigarette from a pack, the other was boredly kicking a massive tire of a transporter from which steam was rising.
Pollux and Ash crouched behind a pile of rusty drums with an unknown chemical. For Ash, it was a natural environment in which she breathed. For Pollux, it was a chaos of sensations – the smell of diesel, rot, and the vibrations of old transformers.
"Those two," Ash whispered, her gaze passing over their gear with professional coldness. "If we don't take them down at once, one of them will manage to hit that big red button by the door. And then the whole garrison with rifles will fall on our heads."
Pollux looked at the building. He didn't see just dead concrete. He saw the electrical wiring that stretched under the plaster like feverish veins. He felt an irregular, dirty pulse in them.
"That button doesn't work," Pollux said quietly, closing his eyes. "Inside, about three meters behind the wall, is a cable that rats have gnawed through. I see... I feel how those sparks are just jumping aimlessly into the void there. The circuit is disconnected. But that second, smaller soldier... has an old-model radio at his belt. That one works all too well. It buzzes in my ears like a swarm of hornets."
Ash looked at him briefly with wonder. She saw the amber light smoldering in his eyes but did not react. "Fascinating. So instead of a silent alarm, we'll have a screaming soldier directly into the radio wave. That really improved my mood."
"When we pass to those shadows under the ramp, they won't see us, they are focused on the smoke from the cigarette," Pollux continued, watching as the heavy gear wheels of the ventilation turned in the depths of the warehouse. He sensed the tension in the drive belt. "But we must set out now. That motor on the door is about to start. I feel the heat gathering in the coils. Someone is going to open those doors from the inside."
Ash didn't answer. She just briefly nodded and with an unexpected, predatory lightness threw herself into the mud under the ramp. Pollux followed her, although his movements were still stiff, marked by the frost of the mountains. He felt the ground trembling beneath him from the approaching machine.
Suddenly, a heavy, metallic squeal was heard. The huge warehouse gates began to slowly, jerkily slide upward.
"Now," Ash hissed.
They slipped inside at the moment when the gates rose only less than half a meter. Inside smelled of raw meat, congealed fat, and mustiness. The light there was weak, constantly flickering in a 50-hertz rhythm that cut into Pollux's brain like a white-hot knife.
"There are those crates we came for," Ash pointed to a stack of wooden crates with a faded stamp of the Karimor army. "Take two. I'll take the ones with those pretty, colored labels. They look like they might contain alcohol or cigarettes. That sells better in this town than a piece of spoiled meat."
Pollux approached the crates. He reached out his hand but stopped a few centimeters from the rough wood. His senses caught something under the floor.
"Don't put them on the ground if you take them," he warned her in a whisper. "Under this concrete layer... I feel something there. Metal plates connected with wires. They are live. As soon as the weight of a crate falls on them, those indicator lights on the wall in the office will start glowing. It's a trap. Not for people, but for thieves who would want to use carts."
Ash raised an eyebrow in silent appreciation. "You're a really useful piece of furniture, Pollux. So we'll have to carry those eight-kilogram crates in our hands like jewels across the whole yard?"
"If you don't want them to lock us in here like rats in a cage, then yes," Pollux replied and carefully lifted the first crate.
Ash slung her crate over her shoulder as if it weighed nothing, her face now focused. "Good. But if we run into those two with rifles outside, you shoot first. I finally want to see if that Skeldar stance of yours is worth something in harsh practice."
Just then, footsteps were heard from the depths of the warehouse. Heavy, iron-shod boots on concrete. Pollux felt the heat of human bodies and the rhythmic beating of hearts approaching them.
"Someone is coming," he whispered. "And it's not just one guard. I feel... three. They have a dog with them. I feel its heart beating. Fast and hungry. It has already caught the scent of foreign metal."
Ash smiled dangerously, almost joyfully, and pulled one of her "toys" from the holster on her side. "A dog? That's nice. I hope the poor thing likes proper fireworks."