She did not say anything, but simply held firm her glare, which pierced into his soul. He felt judged, as though her eyes were divine judgement ruthlessly administrating the fires of hell from the inside out. The perplexion only added to his distress, for he was more scared of those cold, blue eyes than the steel pressed confidently against his neck. His limbs went numb, weighed down by the oppression of his chaotic feelings.

“Please let me go,” he whined, his face drooping pitifully.

Lena’s hardened face seemed to soften for a second, but then became like stone again as she clenched her fists tightly. She looked at him intently and seriously.

“Tell us, fatty,” said the voice behind him.

“Tell you what? I don’t know what you want!”

“Do you think I won’t use this?” she said, referring to the knife against the man’s throat.

“I believe that you will!” he cried.

“Then tell us, sweetie.”

“Tell you what?”

“We should just kill him, Lena,” she said. “And get Gerald to bury him in the back garden,” she added scornfully.

“Wait, no!” pleaded the young man, his eyes wet with tears. “What do you want to know?” he cried.

“I want to know what business you have with him.”

“With him?”

“Aleku, dumbass.”

“Look here,” he began earnestly, white as a sheet, “it’s been a long day, and a long night, and I’ve just flown from Cardiff; I’m so tired. My mind is slipping away from me. If I was a criminal, why would I commit a heist on so little sleep? Why would I do anything of the sort when my presence was known from the moment, I said to Aleku that I was coming? Has Aleku set you up to this? Is this some sort of prank? It is not very funny, not funny at all. I am not amused in the slightest. You know, you could seriously hurt someone and then you would be in trouble...I won’t say anything about what I have seen tonight, I promise. But if you kill me then you must know that there are people who know where I am...I am a university student...and I live in student accommodation; when my rent is due and I haven’t paid it, what do you think will happen? They, and by they I mean the damn landlords, they will come looking for their rightful payment...and that payment won’t be there because I won’t be there...you understand? And the university...I am a medical student who has to ‘work’ (for free) in the hospital, and when I don’t turn up to do my labour, what do you think will happen? The university persons will come to find me. And I have borrowed a lot of money over the years for this university degree, and when I am found not to be found where I ought to have been found they, and by ‘they’ I mean the government and the loan sharks, will come simultaneously to find me, and they will find out in one way or other, that my last activity was coming here on that dreaded helicopter to this mansion. And you know how they will know that I came here by helicopter? I wrote it on a note in my room...yes, I wrote it down because I had the premonition that something like this might happen. For all my life I have been called lazy and dumb, but no, I am a clever man. It is you, and by you, I mean the collective in general, that is (or are?) dumb. Furthermore, getting back to a previous point I have made, for I must add further evidence to my claim that there will be people who will stop at nothing to find me, is that I borrowed about £21...£2185, no...£2186 to pay for a two-month stint in Warsaw, to do a language school to learn Polish. And the interest on that you don’t even want to know. Now, I do not know what it is that you think that I am, but I must tell you that all I came for is to see Aleku and Jam...Think about it, if I really wanted to hurt you, would I have come through the front door? Would I not have acted already?”

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Lena saw that he was telling the truth, but, as she was aware that she was easily taken as a fool by people she trusted with her heart, she did not trust her own judgement. She walked side to side for a moment, balancing lightly on her tiptoes at times, wavering, as though she was unsure as to whether to continue walking to the left or right, or to stand still at the same spot she had been standing for the length of time the man had been on the ground, weeping. She felt in her chest her heart tug towards the pathetic man, though of course she did not judge him to be pathetic, but she was also a smart woman, and she knew that by all accounts socially this man would be deemed pathetic; but dammit, she wondered, her face contorted into one with genuine compassion.

“Ah,” she growled quietly, turning to look over her shoulder to hide her own feelings from their captive. It was so quiet that the young man would not have heard it if he had not been already studying the young girl for her reaction to what he had said.

“You are truly a weird man!” she finally said, shaking her head – “Why, you do not think like an ordinary man, but like a child! You do not really know the situation that you are in, one can clearly see that in the way that you talk. Listen, Cee,” she began, addressing the girl holding the man at knife-point, “what do you think? I think that he is telling the truth.”

The little girl tilted the sharp edge of the knife away from the man’s skin and slid the blunt side down across his collarbone and to his fatty, sweaty pecs. “He stinks...but not of assassin or anyone of worth for that matter, but of just weirdo,” she said with disdain.

“Oh,” said Rod, unsure of how to feel at that moment, for he was both relieved that he had escaped an unjust slaughter and offended for being insulted about his weight at the same time. “Oh, I am not even spared the abuse of society from its children, I see. The only way to rectify this situation is to go back and become a child myself.”

“He seems to be very ill,” said Cee, backing away from the man.

“Ill? Me, ill? The only one who is ill here is the society in which I am a part of,” he snarled. “Social inequality is the true cause... of suffering,” he said.

Lena looked at him crossly. “How can you say such a grand, sweeping statement as that? Reducing all the suffering in the world to social inequality is ridiculous,” she said.

Rod eyed her with disdain, seeing not really her, but all those who espouse such a disregard for social inequality, a disregard they plainly have not had to face much of themselves! He rose up, the strength in his knees returning with full vigour, though he was shaking tremendously out of nervous excitement. He pointed at the blocks of computers behind him. “This,” he snarled, “this is what is wrong with the world.”

“It’s just a bunch of computers you stupid boomer.”

“And what are they for? Eh?” screeched Rod, putting on a show of anger, though inwardly he was quite contented with the new situation that he now found himself in; for these supercomputers were no doubt there to power the system.

“It’s a server farm,” sighed Lena, brushing her hair back from her forehead.

“Do you know what this ‘server farm’ is used for? Eh?” he said, his right eye twitching menacingly with anticipation.

“Er, for Aleku’s incessant political rants. What else?” shrugged Cee.

“Wait; hold on a moment. What is going on? Where’s the rest of you? I thought we were going to go shopping. Why all of a sudden you hold a blade to my neck? Eh? What’s up with that? And why did you lead me here?” asked Rod with confusion.

“Ach, ach, too many questions,” cried Cee, pointing at him with the knife. “Did anyone teach you prudence?”

“Eh? Why are you suddenly talking so differently?”

“What do you mean,” said Cee, folding her arms. “You really are a strange man. Am I not allowed to talk differently?”

“No, wait...yes, but...this all doesn’t quite make sense,” said Rod, shaking his head. “You were out there just now acting completely different to how you are acting now. How is this possible?”

“Oh, you naive child,” said Cee.