After picking up the people, Li Qingyu returned to the sanctuary and examined the four newcomers with interest.
Kate, the legless PDF soldier – emptiness below the knees. They said this fool got drunk and walked onto a minefield. The explosion did its job. Now his maximum is peeling potatoes.
Kaybor, Kate's younger brother – a guy in his early twenties, in his prime. He had grown into a real giant: one meter ninety-five tall, biceps as thick as a normal person's thigh. Ideal working material.
And finally, Mrs. Liz – a middle-aged woman, tall, almost a meter eighty, with a face marked by sorrow.
(From now on, we will call them: Brother Kate, Younger Kate, Father Kate, and Mother Kate.)
The genetics of this family were phenomenal – each one looked like they stepped off a bodybuilding poster. But as soon as Brother Kate foolishly blew himself up, the whole family was exiled to the Underhive. One idiot – four broken destinies.
Everything was different from Little Joel's situation. Joel's exile was standard, without personal idiocy. But this one was their own fault.
Therefore, their mood was different. Joel's family lived by the principle of "sticking together as long as we live." The Kates, however, saw themselves as victims of one imbecile.
Now they stood darker than a cloud, filled with malice and resentment. When Younger Kate realized they were at the distillery, his expression became even darker.
Li Qingyu noticed how the guy was projecting the blame for their exile onto him. An alcohol merchant, so they were suffering because of him. Absurd, but that's what Younger Kate's eyes conveyed.
Irritation rose like a wave. "I went all the way to save you, and you stand there with sour faces, not even saying thank you?" he thought.
When Joel's family was saved, they fell to their knees. Elder Joel swore loyalty until death – that was the right attitude.
Anyone else in his place would have kicked the Kates to hell. He wasn't going to be anyone's emotional garbage dump.
But their physical data was excellent. They would work for two, and be useful in battle. He should show a little mercy.
And all their grumbling was simple: they were saved too easily. Joel went through hell, and these guys didn't even get dirty.
Well, this could be fixed.
"Xiao Dao, come here."
Xiao Dao, who was checking the fermentation vats, immediately jumped up. He had already fully integrated into the distillery's rhythm: just returned – and straight to work. A guy with initiative.
Li Qingyu nodded at the quartet of Kates:
"Take them to the Drain Airlock. Let them sit there for a day, we'll give them the traditional Underhive welcome. And then you decide – whether to return them or not."
Li Qingyu, without looking back, went to the training equipment to pump iron.
Xiao Dao didn't understand the hint at first, but looking at the gloomy faces of the guests, he realized everything. He grabbed an assault rifle, his finger on the trigger. He approached the family.
"Follow me. The boss ordered a welcome ceremony."
Younger Kate frowned: "What ceremony?"
Xiao Dao didn't answer. He simply opened the iron gate and went outside.
Younger Kate felt humiliated, wanted to protest, but his father stopped him.
"Push your brother and go. We're on foreign territory, there are their own rules. Let's go."
Grumbling something under his breath, Younger Kate rolled his brother after their parents.
Brother Kate sat in the chair lifelessly, like a corpse.
Xiao Dao led them through the safe zone, and after an hour, they reached the Drain Airlock.
The airlock was a monstrous pipe that pierced the entire Hive from top to bottom. Through it, the Upper and Middle levels dumped waste to the bottom.
Garbage mixed with sewage turned into a semi-liquid mass. When enough shit accumulated above, the airlock opened, and thousands of tons of slop poured down.
Thus, a huge mountain of waste grew in the Underhive – according to rumors, up to a hundred kilometers high.
At the very base, a titanic grinder worked. It ground this garbage into dust, which was burned to generate energy for the Hive.
No one had seen the mechanism itself, but the rats noticed the mountain sinking – meaning the grinder was still alive.
And as soon as the pile collapsed, a new layer fell from above. Without end.
In the harsh universe of Warhammer 40k, even giant machines couldn't process the waste of hundreds of billions of people.
Sooner or later, the entire lower part of the Hive would drown. The grinder only delayed the end.
Just as the heroes of the Imperium delayed the death of humanity.
Xiao Dao led the Kates to this mountain. They hid in a side tunnel and looked down – at this grandeur of decay.
The waste mountain stretched along a tunnel with a diameter of ten kilometers, going down for a hundred. The entire space was filled with garbage.
On the surface, tens of thousands of people were moving. They dug through the waste, looking for anything valuable.
Xiao Dao and Kate stood in a technical collector fifty meters above the dump. He found a convenient spot, leaned against the wall, took out a rag, and began to wipe his rifle, ignoring them.
At first, the Kates only wondered why they were brought here. But seeing the dump and the people swarming on it, they froze. They couldn't take their eyes off it.
The garbage collectors stood knee-deep in the rotting mess. They shoveled, dug, rummaged in the disgusting sludge as if gold were hidden in it.
Someone dug pits two or three meters deep and dived into them entirely. The sludge oozed and squelched, covering their bodies with a sticky black-yellow slime.
In the Kates' eyes, the mountain turned into a giant cesspool, and the people wriggling in it – into white maggots.
"Bu-u-u-ugh!"
Mother Kate couldn't stand it – she vomited. Father rushed to support her.
The brothers stood pale as death. What they saw turned their world upside down.
They had heard that life in the Underhive was hard. But they couldn't imagine it was such hell. To what extent could one fall just to survive?
The ceremony was just beginning.
Somewhere on the dump, one garbage collector dug up an intact tin can. He opened it and froze.
Inside lay a crushed piece of cream cake.
His pupils narrowed, his heart sank. He snapped the box shut and hid it in his backpack, intending to disappear.
But the commotion attracted neighbors. One grabbed him by the hand, drilling him with a suspicious gaze.
"You found a box? What's in it?"
The lucky guy broke free, tried to leave.
"Some parts, I'll sell them to the bandits, get a few coins."
The neighbor didn't believe him and grabbed him again: "What did you find?! Show me!"
He squinted, sharply turned, and plunged the knife into his stomach.
"Found a device... to improve your mother's brain!"
He started to run. Behind him – the cake! A real cream cake!
He didn't even know what it was, but the sweet aroma momentarily cut through the stench of the dump. And in that second, he realized: his whole life – twenty years of shit – was for this piece of happiness.
He just wanted to find a place where it didn't stink so much, eat his find, and die happy.
But they didn't let him die peacefully. The wounded opponent screamed:
"Catch him! He found food!! Real food for the lords from above! It's worth trying – and you can die happy! A-a-a-ah!"
The scream echoed through the ten-kilometer crater, awakening the beast in the larvae.
Even maggots dream of tasting aristocrats' food. One look – and reason loses control.
A massacre began.
Tens of thousands of people threw themselves at each other. Pipes, rebar, bricks – everything went into play.
Screams, shrieks, laughter, howls. People killed without purpose, without reason. The guy with the cake was torn apart first. The cake mixed with dirt and bodies, becoming part of the dump.
The madness didn't subside. Corpses piled up in layers. After a few minutes, the sweet dessert disappeared under mountains of dead.
The crowd went mad, infected with "camp rabies." Only the instinct for slaughter remained. People the color of garbage lay down on the mountain of garbage.
The slaughter lasted for half an hour – and didn't subside.
Did anyone remember what it all started with?
Suddenly, a powerful roar thundered from above.
First, small debris began to tap the surface, like the first drops of rain. Then heavy masses followed, sweeping away and crushing everyone beneath them.
One of the maggots raised his eyes and managed to see a new celestial mountain falling upon them.
Rumble. Rumble. RUMBLE!
Hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage crashed from the airlock's maw, causing an underground roar.
Kate's family screamed and recoiled deeper into the tunnel.
When the noise subsided, they peeked out. The garbage level had risen by about fifty meters – almost level with their shelter. Those who were killing a second ago were now part of the mountain.
The Kates trembled, looking at this abyss. And then they noticed – new garbage collectors were crawling out of the neighboring tunnels. With rebar, with crowbars. They were already digging into the fresh layer, looking for trophies, risking their lives for a piece. It was all a cycle.
A dirty, insane, cannibalistic cycle.
The Kates were stunned into silence.
Father was the first to come to his senses. He understood Xiao Dao's hint. This wasn't a show – it was a warning. He remembered how they had behaved, how Li Qingyu had looked at them. His hair stood on end.
They had behaved not like rescued people, but like masters. And without a patron, they faced the same fate as these creatures below.
"Mister... Dao!"
He turned sharply to rush to his knees, but Xiao Dao had already disappeared.
Panic overwhelmed him. He grabbed his relatives and dragged them back, along the path that had led them here. Back – to their only chance of salvation.