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Chapter 6

– Eighty years ago, World War III began and ended, in the first eight minutes of which ninety percent of the world’s population was wiped out,“ Andrei Bal, host of one of the most popular evening shows, began his opening speech… „Almost ninety percent of the landmass will never be habitable due to deadly radiation. The water in the oceans is contaminated and the fish are dead. The remaining humans are forced to take radiation blockers for the rest of their lives. Many will no longer be able to have children. What led to the worst war in human history, and what are the consequences of this war – let’s find out today in «Here and Now» on the federal TV channel. We have with us the Vice Chancellor of Central State University, Professor Michael Sulu and the commander of the special unit «Witches Coven» Eira Lauda.

The cameras briefly froze on the faces of the guests and once again took a close-up of Andrei. The host continued.

– Mr. Sulu, let’s start with you. Remind us all about the background to the disaster eighty years ago.

– Hello! – the Vice-Rector began quite confidently. – I propose to start with a small excursion into the basics of physics to understand the causes of this tragedy. In the middle of the last century, scientists made a number of significant discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics. They discovered and studied such phenomena of the microcosm as quantum superposition, when a particle exists simultaneously in several antiphase states, quantum teleportation – instantaneous information transfer, and wave function collapse, when a force energy field collapses into a particle when it is detected. These strange phenomena have been repeatedly recorded, but no convincing explanation for these phenomena has ever been found. There were many theories and interpretations, some of which turned out to be flawed, others unrealistically fantastic. One of such delusional, at that time, interpretations turned out to be flawless from the point of view of logic. This is Everett’s many-worlds theory. In a nutshell: any outcome of events in the microcosm depends directly on the observer of these events. Fields collapse into particles, and particles move from one state to another under the influence of the will of the observer. And quantum teleportation is nothing but the connection of each particle with the entire universe. This theory was proved almost seventy years later, – he paused and looked around the audience. – I see that I have already bored you with physics, so I will tell you in simple words. The consciousness of the observer influences the world around him. We are observers and, at the same time, creators. The process of observing a process directly affects the process itself. Pardon the tautology. The psychological state of the observer is taken into account. Our desires, aspirations, fears, experiences are the only set of factors influencing the world and determining the whole universe. – The professor took a sip of water from the glass. – But at that moment nobody knew how exactly to influence reality with consciousness and change the course of events. A series of experiments on working out the correct model of consciousness behavior to influence a single particle began. But exactly everyone understood that the fundamental factor was true belief and will. And the factor negatively affecting the results of the experiment was doubt. But how do you make the mind believe and the mind not doubt? The brain is not a machine. You can’t write a program for it.

– So, what we want is what we get? – smiled the host. – The main thing is to want it right?

– Approximate wording. «The main thing is to want it right. After all, if everything we want was fulfilled, the world would cease to exist instantly. Can you imagine how many wishes would be realized in the first second of such a model?

– Everyone would want different things, and sooner or later there would be a conflict of desires.

– That’s right! There would be chaos. The laws of physics would go crazy and matter would disintegrate into atoms. That’s why it’s inaccessible and impossible for us.

– Inaccessible by whom? Is it forbidden?

– You are walking on the edge of the duality of perception of the universe, Mr. Host. – The professor smiled broadly. – We believe that the absence of such a model of the world, where the Universe would materialize any desire of a reasonable being, is conditioned by the anthropic principle: «We see the Universe so, because only in such a Universe an observer could arise»

– Otherwise it simply wouldn’t exist.

– Otherwise it simply does not exist here and now,» corrected the professor and continued. – Our consciousness functions continuously even in sleep and interacts with the surrounding world on a very subtle level. But extraneous thoughts, images and emotions prevent us from forming a clear desire. Besides, our desires often change and what was necessary today is not so important tomorrow. And numerous doubts are always present in the mind. It is impossible to get rid of them, no matter how much we want to. There is almost never a state of pure consciousness, without doubts at all. It is like the sky: some people have clouds, some people have enlightenments, and some people are completely covered with clouds. But there is no perfectly clear consciousness.

– So how are wishes meant to come true? And what kind of wishes?

– That’s a very good question! The wish itself does not disturb the physical picture of the world in almost any way. Just a slight ripple on the water. Therefore, the main driving force in the universe is not desire at all!

– Intention!

– That’s right! The magical power of intention. A man is sitting at a table and he has the urge to smoke. What happens?

– Nothing.

– Nothing! But when the desire to smoke grows into intention, the mystery of creation takes place. A man’s hands reach for a cigarette and matches. And, lo and behold! The wish has come true. Intention is the only driving force in the universe! And it’s not limited by anything! But you have to give credit to the fact that without a wish, nothing could have been accomplished.

– What research has been and is being done on these, shall we say, semi-abstract concepts?

– It took us fifteen years to somehow designate the direction of this research, and only then did all subsequent experiments begin to yield positive results. We studied the influence of thought processes on quantum fields in thousands of subjects. And we found certain patterns. And it was a breakthrough in science no less than the emergence of language in homo sapiens. Unfortunately, it also brought great misfortune. When the information was publicly released, society suddenly realized what a mistake we had made. We had opened Pandora’s box. If you believe in something and do not doubt your choice, it will definitely come true. And the strongest factor for such belief was religion, which immediately declared all our work to be the work of dark forces. After all, it was once considered witchcraft and was fiercely persecuted. Witches were burned! – The professor smirked at Eira. – Nevertheless, the church itself began to actively use the results of our research. It occurred to some of them that the time had come for the apocalypse described in the last book of the Bible, the Revelation of John the Evangelist.

– The end of the world, I suppose?

– Let me remind you: in this part of the new covenant, god shares with one of his prophets about his plans to destroy the world, vividly describing the preceding images – the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the terror they are sowing across the earth. I must confess that their faith has proven to be much stronger than ours, and they all believe the same thing, plus there are too many of them. They got their hands on nuclear weapons and we couldn’t help but react. No one remembers who pushed the button first. After eight minutes, it didn’t matter at all. We won. It’s hard to call it a victory, really. It was more like a Pyrrhic victory. After all, the price was nine billion human lives and a scorched planet for thousands of years to come.

– A monstrous war, one can’t deny. But we survived!

– We survived. And the only part of the earth not contaminated by radiation was Eastern Siberia. We started to build cities and roads around the only freshwater lake with huge reserves of clean drinking water. New knowledge helped us a lot in this. We believed that we would be reborn and, against all odds, a new dawn awaited civilization.

– But the war didn’t end. Its legacy lives on to this day.

– It’s not over. You know what the worst part is? No, it’s not a new war or nuclear weapons. The scariest thing is the coming of the messiah that a lot of people are talking about right now. There are still a lot of fanatics. But now they believe not in the power of bombs, but in an apocalypse from their own god. Just imagine one of them suddenly realizing himself as this messiah. Even worse, he will be born as a messiah, and will be raised as a messiah among thousands of believers in this fact. In one of the moments of spiritual practices his consciousness will become absolutely pure, without a single cloud. In that instant, man will become one with his stagnum. And any, but a single, thought that appears in his consciousness will become a command for the universe. And it won’t be a thought of peace and goodness, believe me.

– You said «become one with his stagnum.» What is that?

– Stagnum is a certain energy field of every living being. A certain interface of interaction between consciousness and the outside world. You can call it a karmic manifestation of our personality. And we continuously influence our own stagnum, whether we want it or not. It is the stagnum that realizes our desires, turning them into intentions on a subtle quantum level. At the level where the impossible turns into the improbable, the improbable into the possible, and the possible into the realizable. A level where energy comes out of nowhere and easily turns into matter. Stagnum does not openly obey us. We cannot order stagnum directly, but we can form an image of our karmic ego, pardon for pseudoscientific terms, which will nurture our stagnum, fill it with intention. And stagnum already influences the surrounding matter independently.

– And one thought from this fanatic can destroy us?

– More than that. That thought could destroy the universe. Don’t look at the scale of it. The universe is just a holographic model,» Sulu noticed the questioning look on the presenter’s face and realized that he needed to explain in more detail. – But imagine a balloon with the entire universe on its surface. Imagine that this balloon can be inflated to infinite size. As we inflate it, the universe expands. Yes, that’s a simplified view. A two-dimensional projection of our three-dimensional universe. Just as our three-dimensional universe is a projection of the four-dimensional mega-universe. So, no matter how huge it is, no matter how far it expands, it is enough to pierce this ball with a thin needle to make the universe collapse into a point. Everything around us ceases to exist down to the atoms. And the entire vast universe is as vulnerable as a microscopic particle. The distances and sizes of the interacting objects are irrelevant. It is enough to give a command to disintegrate at least such a particle as a proton, so that all the protons of the universe at once simultaneously cease to exist. Many people think that the end of the world is some kind of extravaganza. That fire rains down from the sky, plagues all around and earthquakes. No! All you have to do is take a proton and make it decay. The protons of the universe are connected to each other in an unbreakable network, just like any matter. Pfft! And there is no universe. That said, it doesn’t take much energy. Proton decay is one of the end of the world options we can explain physically. And while there are still plenty of fanatics, it only takes one believer for such a plan. But it has to be a special fanatic. But there are no such people yet, otherwise… Sami. Even if you devote your whole life to spiritual practices, you can’t achieve such a state of consciousness. Besides, I believe we have witches.

– And that’s what the High Witch of the Coven will tell us,» interrupted the professor. – Eira, what does your unit do?

– Hello, – began the guest. – Special unit «Witches of Coven» appeared more than twenty years ago. The unit consists of women and is designed solely for the destruction of fanatics, their sympathizers and all the trappings of religion.

– Why women? Sorry to interrupt, but aren’t men stronger than women?

– A man is weaker than a woman,» the witch smiled. – That’s why they will never be in my unit. And physical strength has no meaning or effect now. High technology and developed stagnum are the key to effective work.

– But men’s stagnum has always been superior to women’s. Hasn’t it? – The host didn’t give up.

– It depends on how you show it. But I can say one thing for sure. Do you know why there have never been women in religion? Why they were not taken not only as church ministers, but even as clerics? Because a woman is essentially down-to-earth and dreams of earthly goods. About the love of a real man, about children, about health for their loved ones, about financial well-being. And never worldly will not trade for an invented god. Moreover, a woman is ready to defend everything she has real! With her teeth! With her fingernails! She has no fear of a mythical character that no one has ever seen. Can you say that about a man? Michael, Andrei, haven’t any of you ever questioned the path you’ve chosen? Have you ever wondered if I’m blaspheming? Don’t we look up to the sky with questions?

– Yes… – the host interrupted the awkward pause. – Witches. Do you have any powers, or is that just an antagonistic name?

– Sophisticated stagnum! That’s what witches have in common. Is that how you use your stagnum, Andrei? – Eira asked. – Okay, I’ll answer that. You have achieved your position, you have money, you are loved by women, you are used to luxury. It’s the usual stagnum of an ordinary man with ordinary desires and strong ambitions. With such a stagnum you can achieve a lot in life. To the point of becoming an alpha in Pride. The key is to develop it properly.

– Isn’t that what they teach us at school? – smiled the host.

– It is. But a woman who chooses the path of a witch will never have anything like that. The sole purpose of my stagnum is to kill. I, for one, have a living stagnum. He talks to me. His name is Max. And he is merciless to his enemies, as he embodies all my ideas, ambitions, and hatred of bigots.

– And how does it work? – The professor couldn’t resist, obviously mocking the words about a living stagnum. – Does he tell you jokes? Do you have dinner together? Bullshit! Pure nonsense! A stagnum is stationary in essence and in name!

Eira pulled a pistol out of her duty holster, turned it around, and held it out to Michael.

– Shoot me!

– And what? – The professor didn’t move. – What will the stagnum’s reaction be? Will it stop the bullet? – Michael was clearly enjoying his joke.

– And that’s what we’re about to find out! – Eira raised her voice. – Don’t be afraid! It’s interesting.

– We’re not going to shoot anyone, – Andrei tried to defuse the situation. – Put the gun away. Tell me about your operational work. Do you kill them on the spot? I mean fanatics.

Eira looked at the professor a little more, and hid the gun in its holster.

– The little things – clerics, sympathizers – we destroy on the spot. The more important ones, the spiritual leaders, the preachers, the monks, we take them to the Coven prisons.

– Yes,“ Sulu grinned again, „the last assault ended with the fanatics being found dead with their mouths sewn shut and their severed genitals and mammary glands stuffed into them. Even a couple of journalists got caught in the act. What’s your witch’s name? Boudicca? Everyone knows that any encounter with a witch will end in either an agonizing death or a cruel curse.

– Why don’t you kill the more important ones on the spot? – interrupted the professor.

– Then they immediately become martyrs,» the witch smiled, defiantly ignoring the professor. – They died for their faith. And thus strengthen the faith of other fanatics. Rumors in this environment spread almost instantly.

– So? You just put them in jail?

– No, we release them as soon as the renunciation process is complete. It’s very effective. A person renounces his faith in public, and we show it on a special TV channel.

– But a man can be deceived by renouncing his faith!

– Who? God? – Eira lit a cigarette. – Do you mind? – She asked Andrei and took a deep drag. – If a man goes to deceit to save his own skin, then he no longer trusts his god. You can’t deny your god by pretend. The whole point of religion is to blindly believe that god will protect you from any force. And if he doesn’t, he’s accepted you into the kingdom of heaven without a trial. Either way, it’s a good thing. By denying, you doubt his power and intent.

– Was it successful? Do you have special people for this?

– So far, it’s been successful. But it’s getting harder every time,» the witch took a drag. – You know, we don’t like to talk about it. It’s a very unpleasant part of our work. To give you an example, in one of the last renunciations we had to cut children in front of their parents. Didn’t last long. The parents, of course.

– And how do you sleep afterward? – The professor asked.

– We have sarcasm on sarcasm! – Eira couldn’t stand it and defiantly exhaled smoke right in the professor’s face. – When the life of a billion people depends on you, when you are trying to save this fragile hope from the last effort, when you yourself put a cross on your personal life, then it’s not up to morality. Don’t worry, Professor. When I find you in the company of fanatics, I’ll kill you right there and fast. Let’s call it a day! – the witch threw the cigarette butt into the professor’s glass and left the studio.

Chapter 7

– Whisper,“ Eira said, taking a sip from her tall glass. – That was brilliant! I didn’t believe you could handle so many people at first. You’ve never used mass hypnosis on us before. – She turned toward the bar: „Do we need someone to refresh the alcohol, or should I call the SWAT team here?

Six women sat at a round table in the corner of a small restaurant room in the dim light of the stage spotlights. There was not a single customer in the restaurant, except for the noisy female company of the Coven, and not a single waiter. A moment later an elderly man of short stature appeared from the bar with two bottles. He bustled over to the vacationers and filled glasses and shot glasses.

– The waiters had already dispersed. I’m the only one left. Shall I leave the bottles here? – he asked coyly. – If they run out, you can choose whatever you want at the bar. – He nodded toward the bar. – I’m sorry, but I need to get home to my family, too. Call me if you need anything. – He stood for a moment until Eira gave him a generous wave of her hand, and then he jogged toward the exit.

– When you book a table for tonight, don’t tell me it’s for a coven! – said Cataleya, adjusting the napkin on Boudicca’s chest. – The restaurateur put the restaurant up for sale and all the staff quit retroactively.

– I wanted to get a small discount, not curse the entire restaurant,» Tamura replied. – I really didn’t get charged for the banquet at all.

– What about the restaurant, what about the whispering? – Eira persisted.

– Have you ever heard of the practice of whispering witches? – Ruta asked back. – Vince is coming to pick me up soon,» she said, looking at the bewildered employees who looked at her with a question in their eyes, «my boyfriend,» she said. – The Jap will tell you all about it later. – Ruta pointed her finger at Tamura. – Shall we get to the ceremonial part? I realize I’m a hero who once again saved humanity from fanatics. And I’m smarter than all of you,» she smirked quietly, «but I’m not the birthday girl. Pour it, Tamurych, why are you sitting there selling tabla?

– Do you want to laugh? – Eira stood up and raised the filled glass. – When we had already spent money on the gift, paid for the project to the hardware and software developers, and ordered the sword, Ruta suddenly shrieked, «Holy shit! She needs two katanas. She’s an ambidextrous, after all!» We all froze, and Sylvia from the tech department timidly asked: «Who’s an ambidextrous?» And the white one said, «An ambidextrous person is a person who doesn’t care which hand is holding a pipidaster.»

– Katanas? – Tamura interrupted the raucous laughter of the guests. – It was a gift, wasn’t it? – The birthday girl’s brown eyes flashed like two supernovae. – Tell me it’s a gift! They’re not just katanas, are they?

– One katana so far,» Eira replied. – Or what’s the correct word? One katana? – She pulled out from under the table a Japanese sword in a black jade scabbard with an equally black jade hilt

– Pipidastre! – Tamura held out her hands to take the gift.

– What is a pipidastre? – Boudicca suddenly perked up.

– Wait!» Eira pulled the gift away from the birthday girl. – I’ll tell you first. It’s a work of art and the quintessence of the most modern technology,» she half-bared the blade. – It’s an alloy of the usual combat polymer used for firearms strikers and an isotope of titanium. Ninety times stronger than steel! It scratches diamond, but corundum cuts like bread. Superman’s kryptonite shatters into crumbs! Self-sharpening blade!

– Great! – Tamura exclaimed in amazement, impatiently holding out her hands for the gift.

– Have patience, Major Hogan! – said the commander sternly. – This is only the beginning of the presentation of the toughest and deadliest weapon in the universe! Despite the apparent integrity of the cloth, it is composed of three hundred and seventy layers. This is the optimal number to maintain the sword’s durability and the functionality of the device as a whole. If you look closely at the center of the hilt, you will see a dark display screen that is activated,“ she quickly brought the hilt up to Tamura’s face and immediately pulled it away before the birthday girl realized what was happening, „by a biometric scanner of the user’s face! It’s a weapon that would kill God himself!

– Where’d you get the scan of my face, huh?

– In the database! Don’t distract me! The technology of the whole device resembles a standard witch’s knife, but! The blade performs continuous automatic blood sampling of victims across the entire surface of the blade, separating it by DNA types already at the stage of formation of individual protovacuum cells. The processor continuously sends queries to the database for DNA matches, automatically generating a list of murdered people in the witch cloud, labeling the time and place of the murder or wounding. Immediately after listing, blood is removed through the tip of the blade tip. If no match is found, the sample is placed in a protovacuum cell and can be stored there, uncoagulated, for eight months! When it is no longer needed, it is reset with a touch button on the display. Forty such protovacuum cells can be formed! These dots show how the cells are filling up. If the dot is red, the cell is full.

– Give me my pipidaster already! – Tamura couldn’t resist, she took the katana away and exposed the blade completely. – What a beauty! – She whispered, looking at the play of reflected light on the ornamental patterns of the gilded sword. – I never dreamed of such a thing! How much is it?

– As much as you give! – Cataleya cut in. – You know the rule.

– Of course, – enthusiastically hissed the birthday girl and pulled out of her purse an ancient gold coin. – Aztec gold! – she tossed the coin with her fingers, unwinding it, and in flight struck it with the palm of her hand, pinning it to the table.

– You knew, didn’t you, that the sword would be a gift? – Eira asked.

– I guessed. But I thought it would be a souvenir from ancient samurai Japan. And I certainly didn’t expect such a celebration! Thank you, girls! Cheers! – she raised a shot of vodka. – I love you all!

– Here’s to you, Tamurach! God grant you the health to kill believers! – shouted Ruta.

– Pun intended? – Eira sneered. – Let’s talk about practicing whispering witches.

– Okay,“ the white witch put the phone down on the table, „Vince is late anyway. Listen. If you choose a special timbre, and on the throat bifurcation whisper poetry, necessarily with dactylic rhyme, such as «God», «Sergejenka», «twig», «cell», and the endings of rhymes should be with a fading amplitude, and the rhythm is constantly breaking, not allowing the subject to get used to the tact, you can directly change the cognitive paradigm of perception of reality. Hallucinations created by the subcortex of the subject’s brain are the most harmless thing that can happen to the subject. How does it work? First, you whisper something very close or even sacred to the victim, but with an intonation for unspoken fear. «Not resurrected» and «not crucified» is immediately clear about whom, but the denial itself a priori causes a protective reaction of the brain, forcibly putting the person into an alpha state. Further all the rest of the whispering motive is visualized by a person in a dream, not realizing that he is sleeping. Does that make sense?

– A test subject? – Eira asked.

– I’d like ten people,» Ruta looked to the left and up. – I’d like to practice.

– Wouldn’t one be enough?

– That’s the thing, it wouldn’t be enough. I’ve had more than one! I want to learn how to control a person’s behavior, not drive them crazy, and I certainly don’t want to kill them. So far, all I’ve gotten is negative results! All I can do is make a crowd think something nasty. And I want to rule! We have unallocated children in foster care. It’s the easiest thing to do with kids. I promise not to kill anyone.

– Practice on Vince,» Tamura whispered, mimicking Ruth.

The young witch jumped up on the table and hissed. Tamura instantly nudged the present and took a strong swing, stopping the sword right at Ruta’s neck.

– What’s going on here? – came a stuttering male voice from behind.

The witches looked at a young man in his thirties. The guy was clearly shocked by what was happening. With shaking hands he held a small black box wrapped with a golden ribbon.

– «Left unbalanced,» Tamura said, pretending not to pay attention to the newcomer. Then she turned to the young man: «I was given a sword. Look at it,» she held it out to Vince, «isn’t it beautiful?

– We made it for your right hand,» Eira said.

– Well, I’ll work on it later,» she jabbed the blade at the box the young man had come in with. – Me?

– What’s a pipidastre? – Boudicca was already getting nervous.

– That’s why a right-handed sword should be balanced to the left hand? – Eira persisted.

– What if my right hand gets chopped off! I’ll throw the katana on the mezzanine, right? Let it gather dust, huh? – Tamura turned to the boy again: «So it’s for me?

– Yes, yt… For you,» he replied.

– My boy was hiccupped to the point of hiccups. – The white witch came from behind to the boy, hugged him and kissed his neck, -Hello, kitty. Don’t pay attention to the elderly idiots,“ she took the boy’s hand and turned to the people sitting there, „this is Vince, my young man. Vince is an artist. He draws the subjects of famous works with a simple pencil.

– Give me the present, Vince,» Tamura used her blade to hook the loop of the gold bow on the black box. – What do we have here? – She quickly untied the knot, opened the box, and pulled out a glass flask, sealed on both sides. In the flask lay motionless a huge insect with glossy straight folded wings and long whiskers. – Is it what I think it is?

– It’s a Krasnoyarsk cockroach,» Vince answered. – From the infested borderlands. He’s in anabiosis. Or a she. I don’t know, to be honest. All I know is that you break off the tip and let air in. The cockroach will come back to life. There’s a special cut in the glass. That’s what the store said. Are you a collector?

– Well, as a collector? – Tamura smiled, shook the cockroach onto the table and pulled off the glove on her left hand. – This is for Mitsu!

Boudicca looked at the cockroach and began to howl.

– «We’re going to go, out on the balcony for a smoke,» said Cataleya, picking Boudicca up under her armpits. – I’ll tell you what a pipidastrum is. – The witches got up from the table and slowly moved outside.

– I’ve seen so many gruesome deaths, but I can’t bear to look at such things,» Snyt commented and turned away defiantly.

The cockroach fell on his back and began to slowly wiggle his mustache. Then he jumped up, quickly oriented himself and ran to the edge of the table, where a model-looking girl with red hair was sitting. A spider immediately jumped out of Tamura’s sleeve and caught up with the cockroach in no time. It jumped on his back and began to knit a web around the fugitive. After a couple of moments, the cockroach gave up. The spider turned it over, climbed onto its belly, and looked at Vince for a moment.

– Thank you,» the birthday girl whispered, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand.

The spider slowly pushed its sting into the cockroach’s abdomen, piercing its web and the soft fabric of the insect’s shell. In pain, the cockroach let out a thin squeak, which changed to a wheeze after a second, and then simply subsided.

– Every breath shall praise the one-eyed man! – The white witch whispered quickly.

– That spider, does it live in you? – Vince looked clearly confused, not expecting this outcome.

– Well, what kind of spider is it? – Tamura said affectionately, stroking the furry back of Mitsu’s meal. – It’s a harmless spider. He’s just a little boy. And cockroaches from the eastern infested territories are his favorite treat. – The spider finished sucking the liquid out of the dried and gaunt cockroach and hopped onto the back of her hand, then ran down her outer garment to the birthday girl’s face and sniffed at her nostril.