"Mmmph..." was all I could manage, watching the lunatic deal with the corpse.
Perhaps it would have been more logical to leave her alive, to interrogate her, but... pity and gratitude for the past pushed Katya to pull the trigger. And also: a frantically crackling alien contamination detector, which buzzed in my ears no worse than a dosimeter. No matter how much Soviet science tried, it couldn't reverse the changes that the nanites were making to the body. And if the Chekists found out about it, they would have torn her apart trying to squeeze out even a shred of information, because formally, Filatova had ceased to be human.
I could continue to make excuses, but that would mean lying to myself. Damn pies, we are humans! And it's in our nature to make mistakes. Our entire history is proof of that.
So I'll ask one German: stupidity, betrayal, or simple incompetence? Considering that he was involved in processing the results of the contamination check, Comrade Shtokhauzen can't escape.
"I don't believe it," I sharply cut off the dissident's moans, who was desperately overacting. "For your acting skills, Comrade Petrov, unsatisfactory."
The maniac, murderer, pervert, and simply crazy person froze, ceasing to mutilate the corpse of the woman with the blown-out back of her head. If he had his way, his gaze would have burned us on the spot, like a laser. There was nothing human left in his eyes. Only the rage and fury of a cornered beast. Leaving such a one alive was simply dangerous.
"And you are persistent, dogs..." a disgusting smirk touched his lips, so condescending that we tensed instantly. "Although, what kind of dogs are you? Hounds of the regime!"
"Hounds..." I rolled the word on my tongue. "I'll remember that. So, you have a choice: die quickly and painlessly, but a little later, or die right here and now."
"What, you won't even pretend to parody your trial, the most deceitful in the whole world?" Petrov grinned nastily. "What about your beloved law?"
"You should have thought about it earlier. And, you know, we've been talking a lot..." I cut him off sharply and with a nod of my head gave the signal to encircle the target.
Litmus and Katya moved apart, not taking their weapons off this monster, who was once human. If only the scanner had shown contamination... But the device remained silent, ruthlessly stating: this guy became shit entirely on his own.
"Indeed..." he drawled. "Time to start the second act!"
The madman suddenly lunged, taking several bullets in the leg, but didn't even pay attention. Laughing loudly, he tumbled over the railing backward, spreading his arms wide, and fell right into the maw of the working mechanisms.
A disgusting crunch of breaking bones was heard, but the laughter did not subside. On the contrary, it became only more hysterical, having completely lost the last traces of reason. A bloody mist shot into the air, which immediately dissolved in the beginning rain.
"Damn! You finished bastard!!!" I yelled, already running, hearing Litmus's profanity in the corner of my ear. Katya was silent, but judging by her pale face, it was clear that the spectacle had impressed her too.
Bloody manipulators rose from behind the balustrade of the control cabin, methodically bringing parts to the mess of flesh and bones, over which the mad laughter continued to sound.
Petrov appeared before us in a new guise. Mechanical tentacles, exactly like Eleonora's, were reshaping his body. But the worst was yet to come.
With a nauseating gulping sound, automatons began to implant metal components, servos, circuit boards, and bundles of wires into the exposed flesh. Welding sparks illuminated this nightmare with pulsating flashes.
For a moment, the mixture of meat and metal froze in the air, held by steel hands, and then swayed towards us.
"Let's start the rehearsal!" he screamed, arching in ecstasy, not ceasing his laughter. Petrov dangled from his new limbs, accepting the torture with a blissful expression. The chassis of NA-T256 could now be discerned in his outline. And we could only watch, afraid to interrupt the process. We needed him alive.
His face, if it could still be called a face, contorted in a final spasm of pleasure before disappearing under the encroaching armor. With a clang, the plates closed, fused into a single shell.
With a deafening clang, the newly minted hybrid of machine and man stepped onto the deck, clumsily swaying on massive legs.
The monster made a theatrical gesture, pulling something out from behind his back, showing us, the unwilling spectators of his transformation from a humanoid creature into a goddamn robot, a painfully familiar object.
"I don't need this prop anymore," the bastard showed us the container with beta connectors before throwing it towards Azure. He swung, his robotic armored arm extending, turning into a kind of sling. The transparent cube flew with a whistle into the black stormy sky, flashing with gilded facets for a moment, as if mocking.
"Damn! Where did you get them?!" I howled, my mind going gray with horror at the hell he could unleash with these things.
My brain worked feverishly, calculating options: how to neutralize him without killing or damaging his head, to pull him out of this steel shell.
"The maestro does not reveal his secrets," the monster proclaimed in a hoarse voice, lunging at us. His chassis and arms spun like a mill, and the hands of the mechanical arms flew off on cables.
In a balletic step, the crazy man lunged. We darted aside like mice under a broom, letting the lashing blow of his hands, twisted around his giant carcass, pass by. The huge paw broke through the deck, leaving a dent the size of a good "Moskvich." The monster lost its balance, stumbled, and, waving its stumps, fell on its ass after somersaulting headfirst.
"I'm just warming up! AHAHA-HA-HA!!!" Petrov laughed again with a mad, happy laugh.
Despite his size, he quickly got up, clasped his hands together, and released the cables again, starting to jump over the improvised jump rope, advancing on us with a clang. The poorly secured armor on his stomach swayed like a piece of damn lard.
Once again, jumping over, the madman brought his even longer arms down on me. I managed to get out of the trajectory of the hammer flying at me, but the bitch, seeing that he missed, unclasped his hands at the last moment, lashing them sideways.
A hundred-pound fist slammed into my stomach, throwing me back towards a pile of transport containers. Overcoming the pain, I managed to group myself, unnaturally twisting my joints, and gently sprang onto the deck, causing my bruised intestines to shoot painfully again.
I roll away, seeing the monster flying at me.
With a hellish roar, he crushes a container with his belly, which literally burst from the weight of his carcass, scattering electronics from it like shrapnel. If I hadn't ducked my head, I would have lost an eye, but as it was, a piece of the circuit board simply cut through the skin on my forehead.
The madman didn't stop there. Activating the jet engines in his legs, he slid over the metal like a fragile figure skater on ice. Spinning in the air, he kicked on the reverse motion.
The polymer hemisphere softened the blow, but the force was monstrous. I was thrown back again, pressed face-first into the deck metal and dragged several meters. I barely managed to roll over, the steel paw on cables tearing a piece of plating where I had just been lying.
"You can't cope with the power of metal muscles and hydraulics!" he roared, his voice hissing through the speakers. But then Katya and Litmus telekinetically threw him onto his back, immediately bombarding him with flashbangs.
The explosion didn't penetrate the armor, but anyone who has ever received a "gift" in a tank knows what it's like for the crew during a close detonation. Meanwhile, I formed a giant polymer ball, emptying half my reserves, and threw it at the freak. The sticky mass firmly glued the right side of the machine to the deck, immobilizing its limbs.
Katya and Litmus caught the flying paw and pulled, finally tipping the mechanism over. Overcoming the pain, I rushed forward, jumped onto the steel chest, and took out a cutting torch from the compressed space of my backpack.
Petrov tore his limbs from the floor along with a piece of plating, trying to shake me off. Litmus narrowly avoided decapitation. Katya telekinetically pulled him out at the last moment, and the Italian only got a sliced strip of meat from his thigh.
"Flesh is weak!!!" laughing, the madman again charged forward, trying to brush me off himself simultaneously.
I clung to the armor, scraped the robot's optical sensors with the cutting torch, but the alloys intended for construction withstood the fleeting touch of plasma.
He didn't like this, and with a speed unexpected for such a massive machine, he did five somersaults in a row, then rolled "sunshine," almost running over my wife.
During these pirouettes, the plasma torch managed to melt a hole in his armor. Catching onto the molten edge, I pulled with all my might, and the steel head tore off with a crack. Mad, hate-filled eyes stared at me, the eyes of a creature that had lost all semblance of human form in its madness.
Without hesitation, I hit his dome a couple of times with my bionically enhanced fists. Blood, snot, saliva, and teeth sprayed in all directions, but the bastard didn't even think of shutting down.
Twisting, he grabbed me by the leg with a steel paw and pulled me off himself.
Fortunately, my comrades weren't idle while I was beating him. From under his left leg, Katya emerged like a fish, having managed to shove plastic explosives into the joint.
An explosion. The monster's knee buckled, and trying to regain balance, he threw me again. I'm tired of flying! I'm infantry, not some damn flyer!!!
Litmus, to the screech of a blade, sawed off his other leg, finally bringing the monster down to the floor.
For another minute, we broke his arms, but it was already the agony of a cornered beast. He swatted like a mill, but what could he do against us?
Not on the first try, but we caught one hand in polymer vice grips, then the second, tearing through the armor with practically bare hands.
Petrov stared at us from the machine, frozen in a kneeling pose. He tried to wrench his limbs from the metal snare, spewing curses at us. But through his rage and fury, we saw the fear of death in his eyes, which a flash of lightning distorted on his already grotesque face.
Imperiously, I extended my hand to Litmus, and he, understanding my silent command, threw his battered spear. The two-hand-length blade sang softly, vibrating in the air with imperceptible speed. The shaft fit perfectly into my hand, giving me a second wind.
With a heel strike, I flipped the machine's chassis onto its back. And there I stood, trampling its carcass, looking into his eyes again.
"Well, Cerberus, sink your fangs in!" Petrov spat, but missed me. "Come on, take revenge, entertain your meager little mind! But know this: your perfect world will burn! People can't be changed! If not me, then others will show..."
I silenced him, pressing my boot to his head. With a sigh, I answered sincerely:
"It wasn't revenge I desired," I said, shaking my head, "but a bright future for all people. Even for those like you."
I raised the spear like a shovel and chopped at his thin neck. I am no executioner. Even with a super-sharp weapon, I couldn't sever his neck with the first blow. Blood splattered me, but the downpour that followed immediately washed it off my uniform. With a second strike, I put an end to the life of a once-good man.
His head was still alive. His lips twitched convulsively, trying to say something at the end. I grabbed it by the hair, letting the slippery shaft slip from my hands.
I took a special container from my backpack and, seeing the horror in the monster's eyes, placed the head inside, not letting him die completely. The container shuddered, accepting the terrible burden. The pumps activated, which would pump nutrient fluid, preventing Petrov from completely departing. He would serve the world he once built with us and so hated later...
I sincerely wished him death, looking at the burned houses and mutilated bodies of innocent people who were simply unlucky enough to be in the path of the machines. But now, holding the container with the severed head, I felt no relief.
A thin hand landed on my shoulder. Katya looked exhausted. Her body was wounded, but she found the strength to support me, bringing me back to the sinful earth, which will be washed by blood more than once. And it is only in our power to spill it first, overthrowing monsters and tyrants.
"B-r-r-r-r! Bitch! Too many blows to the head, for me to get into such reflections."
Shaking my head, I finally shook off the gloomy mood and said to Katya:
"Help Litmus, and I'll call headquarters."
"And who among us decided to study medicine first?" she grumbled philosophically, summoning a thinned-out first-aid kit from storage. With a flash of static, the equipment materialized in her hands, and she headed towards Litmus, who was unsuccessfully trying to foam over a bleeding wound on his leg.
I pressed the communicator to my ear:
"Plutonium calling Wizard. Highest priority connection!"
The ether fell silent. Even the background static died down for a few long seconds. Then, from the sky, deliberately slowly, the "Sipukha" approached from the visible side. The drone lowered to my face level and activated the holographic projector.
Through the bluish shimmer, which the rain unsuccessfully tried to penetrate, the image of the academic appeared. Behind him, members of the "3826" enterprise council sat at a round table. Even through the interference, it was visible that they had been arguing heatedly about something a second ago. Scientists are a noisy people.
"Wizard is on the line. Report, Plutonium," my godfather said coldly, but before that, his keen gaze managed to scan me from head to toe, looking for injuries.
I removed the now unnecessary headset and froze at attention, beginning my report:
"During the liquidation of the incident's aftermath, my group discovered Comrade Petrov. Due to the impossibility of safely transporting the object to 'Chelomey,' the decision was made to liquidate him on-site." I rattled off the report clearly, gesturing to the drone to indicate the target.
The camera obediently turned, showing the twisted hull of the robot with the former engineer's body embedded in it. A murmur rose in the council hall.
Ignoring their reaction, I continued: "The unit ensured the preservation of critically important information." I demonstrated the container with Petrov's head. Bubbles in the nutrient solution and a clouded, hateful gaze caused a new wave of excitement among the scientists.
Some turned away with disgust, while others, on the contrary, eagerly leaned forward. Vavilov and Pavlov even livened up. They are not maniacs, but fanatics of science to the bone.
Waiting for the murmur to subside, I continued again: "During the operation, an enemy storage of beta-connectors was discovered, which he discarded in the direction of Azure Lake to complicate the subsequent search. Also, Petrov's accomplice, Comrade Filatova, who helped him escape from the detention cell, was liquidated. The decision to liquidate was made due to the object's anomalously high infection with alien nanomachines. Report complete."
The Wizard nodded, accepting what was said.
"Good, Plutonium. Hand over the head to the robot." After a moment's hesitation, he replied, gesturing to the machine, "I entrust you with returning the beta-connectors."
"May I add?" Playing the good boy to the end, perfectly understanding how hard it was for my godfather now, I said, feigning the demeanor of a soldier who is an accessory to a rifle. After receiving a benevolent nod, I said, "The dissidents could not have carried out such a large-scale diversion on their own. Someone helped them, not only from outside but also at the Enterprise."
"Operative Argon reported similarly. Colonel Muravyova is currently conducting an inspection on the territory," Dmitry Sergeevich replied, although he shouldn't have. "Proceed with the search operations. End communication."
The hologram collapsed. "Sipukha" flew even closer, hovering demandingly right in front of my face. I handed it the container with the head, thinking with a little malice that Petrov awaited his final flight. Having received what it needed, the machine shot up into the clouds like a candle.
"Seryozha, I don't want to distract you, but don't you see Filatova's corpse?" Katya called out to me, already finishing bandaging Litmus's leg.
"Fuck," I commented concisely, not finding the desired object with my gaze. "You blew up the back of her head, along with her heart! With that, you'd die even with military modifications. She didn't just leave on her own?"