Sunday, 05:30 a.m.

Carla Brandon had followed through on their phone agreement, and the majestic giant yacht Sea Lord was waiting at the agreed upon rendezvous point on the north beach. The widow of Dennis Dexter had not been surprised to hear from the TRAP agency again after all this time, but of course she had wanted to know the reason for their request. The explanation had convinced her at once, and she had immediately agreed to take the mini-sub far enough out to sea. The prospect of a possible destabilization of the entire city and the danger of an invasion by the PFN would be extremely damaging to her business and had to be avoided at all costs. The crawler crisis had not affected drug consumption in Elysium, which was her main source of income. However, the threat of a Russian-style military dictatorship being established on her territory was of a different order, and she had no interest in the consequences.

Over the past three days, Yanny had given Abigail a basic introduction to the controls of the mini-submarine, and with the help of a data cable connection from the onboard controls to her brain, the crash course had been enough for her to steer the vehicle to its destination. This newly implanted socket in the back of her head was already paying dividends in other areas. The process of docking into the lock beneath the anchored luxury yacht had made her sweat. Fortunately, the area was protected by hard rubber pontoons that completely prevented the boat from hitting anything and causing any damage. When the submarine was finally back in place and Harry, Yuri and Abigail had climbed out the hatch, they were greeted by Carla and two of her bodyguards. The most powerful woman in the underworld of Elysium was, as always, perfectly styled in an elaborate blue dress and looked like she was on her way to a gala dinner.

"Oh, what an exciting visit! It's a shame we have to meet again under such adverse circumstances. You did a fantastic job back then, and unfortunately we didn't even get a chance to celebrate your victory properly," she called out to the agents who were moving in her direction across a narrow, swaying bridge. When she spotted Yuri, who had been the last to disembark, her features lit up even more. "Oh, there's Mr. Yuri Sokolov too..."

"You even remember my last name?" Yuri asked, genuinely surprised. Carla looked at him with sparkling eyes and a smile on her lips.

"Of course, you don't meet men as handsome as you very often, so it's easy to remember such a great name," she replied, purring slightly, before asking the group: "Do you have to stay completely sober, or shall we toast our reunion with a little glass of champagne? It will take us a good two hours to reach the coordinates where you will disembark from the submarine."

"Completely sober, unfortunately," Harry nodded curtly.

"Pity, hmmm... where have you left your charming colleague? The young doctor who helped you in the ring," Carla asked Harry, motioning for the three of them to follow her. The engine noise down here was beginning to interfere with the conversation and she wanted to offer her guests at least some comfort - if only for the short time they were staying. The three gladly complied and accompanied Carla and her bodyguard up the stairs.

"I'm afraid our doctor is indisposed," Harry replied again, his face serious and his expression tense and distracted. Abigail, who was walking right behind him, looked at him worriedly. Of course, they were all worried about Yanny, but she sincerely hoped that Harry wouldn't let his worries affect the upcoming action. They needed a good dose of luck and a cool head more than anything else. They needed him at his best, this time more than ever.

"That's a real shame. Well, when this is all over, would it be nice if you could all come to one of my next receptions together? We could drink a toast together. Would you like something else instead, something non-alcoholic? My bartender Dave mixes excellent cocktails with juice and soda, so you'll get a good dose of vitamins," Carla continued in a friendly manner.

"I must see Mrs. Muller urgent," she was abruptly interrupted by Yuri, who delivered his sentence in the most innocuous way possible.

"Mrs. Muller's?" Carla replied, then laughed and looked at him with wide, questioning eyes. They had now reached the top floor and were standing at kitchen level. The millionaire had not expected the agent to want to talk to one of her stewardesses before such an important mission.

"Yes," Yuri nodded, kneading his hands.

"Is this also a covert operation? Mrs. Muller never gave me the impression that she could be involved in anything. But still waters run deep, as we all know," she took refuge in a platitude and pursed her lips.

"Yes, top secret," the giant confirmed with a poker face and pricked up his ears. At least Lisa was still working here on the ship, so he would at least have the opportunity to talk to her. Hopefully.

"Yes, well, you'll let me know soon enough if Ms. Muller is involved in anything that should interest me as her employer? The lady should be somewhere on this floor, feel free to look for her. In the meantime, I'll take your colleagues up to the bar if you'd like to join me. Dave must be itching to mix some drinks, they don't call him *the hottest shaker in North Beach* for nothing," she explained.

"Of course, and thank you," Yuri grumbled amiably and stomped off, the small group clearly aware that the Sea Lord was picking up speed at that moment. The giant heard the muffled sound of Carla's chatter as she pushed his companions upstairs while he opened door after door in the corridor to find the stewardess. Since there were no guests on the yacht except the crew, even the doors to the various rooms normally reserved for the staff were unlocked. Fortunately, it didn't take him long to find Lisa Muller in a group with two other ladies who were busy tidying up the pantry in the kitchen. He recognized her immediately. Her pretty face with the snub nose and blue eyes, the long brunette ponytail, and the bright voice that had fallen into a busy sing-song. How many times had he thought of her in the past few months? He had lain awake countless times remembering the two brief encounters he had had with her. Why had this woman made such a lasting impression on him that even the brief adventure with Dr. Kelly Malcom's secretary couldn't erase it? There was something about Lisa that magically attracted him. He just had to try, he had to put all his eggs in one basket.

"Rebecca, what do you say we put the flour packets more to the le-?" Lisa said to her colleague when she suddenly saw Yuri coming and didn't finish her sentence. She seemed to be thinking about where she had seen this imposing man before.

"Mrs. Muller, please forgive interrupting, I... um... my name is Yuri Sokolov, I can speak to you perhaps..." Yuri stammered, noticing how his American seemed to slip away completely in a wave of rising nervousness. He no longer knew himself at that moment. Lisa and her two colleagues in their smart white uniforms looked at him with interest and giggled. Yuri wore a black combat suit with a tight top that hugged his muscular arms. If he hadn't moved, he could have been mistaken for a classical depiction of an ancient deity, and yet at that moment he looked as helpless and shy as a little boy.

"You want to talk to me?" asked Lisa, who was completely stunned by Yuri's question and stood rooted to the spot. Moments later, she felt Rebecca's hands on her back, slowly pushing her toward the tall stranger.

"Don't just stand there, the guy's totally hot, do something, quick!" Rebecca hissed in her ear. The woman with the blond bob, who had grown up in the Wild West, didn't care that Lisa was actually her superior and had long been of the opinion that her own job would be a little more relaxed if her deck officer finally started looking around for a boyfriend.

"Just a minute to talk to you, if possible, maybe," Yuri said.

"A minute is no problem," Rebecca giggled. "We'll be done here in no time anyway." Lisa grimaced as she was pushed further forward, but then nodded to Yuri and walked with him back down the hallway toward the stairs to get out of sight of her colleagues, their necks growing longer and longer with curiosity.

"I think I remember you," Lisa said slowly to Yuri as they turned the next corner together. "The night of the big martial arts tournament a few months ago. You were completely drunk and... and with your wife on board," Lisa recapitulated thoughtfully. Yuri just shook his head.

"Abigail, she not my wife, she is work partner. It was all cover," he explained. With each passing moment, he became a little calmer. After all, he had prepared well. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to her. "Please read, I know I would be very nervous, so I write down all I want to say. Another friend who speaks good Russian helped me translate my thoughts. This here on paper is what I want to say, everything." It was true, Yanny's knowledge of Russian was now so good that she had been able to translate Yuri's letter directly into American. They had written this letter together yesterday, in case he really did see Lisa again. She hesitantly took the paper, unfolded it, and began to read in a hushed voice:

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"I apologize for approaching you like this, but I couldn't help myself. A few months ago, we saw each other only twice very briefly, and the first time I was quite drunk. I may never be able to make up for the bad first impression I made on you, though I would like nothing more. But maybe you would give me a chance to get to know you? I know nothing about you. I don't know if you have a boyfriend and will reject me as soon as you finish reading these lines. I don't know what you like to eat, I don't know your favorite music, your goals or your dreams. All I know is that I can't get you out of my head and I would love to know all these things about you.

Right now I'm on my way to a mission that I don't know if I'm going to survive. Again, because this is my job. My life is defined by danger, so I'm not the kind of man a woman would want. Would you still like to go out with me sometime?"

Lisa lowered the letter and looked at Yuri thoughtfully for a while. He had gentle eyes, she thought. Eyes that didn't really seem to match his martial appearance. He stood quietly, waiting for her reply. It was a strange situation, something like this had never happened to her before and as a servant here on the yacht she had experienced many men and their advances. It had often happened that gentlemen with a lot of money had tried to buy her directly and without further ado, and she had heard enough of the same clumsy pick-up lines in the last few years. She had never accepted any of them. She earned her own money and didn't want to become a toy or a trophy, a showpiece for a millionaire. An object to be discarded when one lost interest in it. Now she was faced with this man who had asked someone else to help him write a letter because he was so nervous that he was afraid he wouldn't be able to find the right words in her language. And all because he had met her briefly months ago. In fact, he gave her the impression that he was a man who made the ladies nervous. She smiled at him as she thought this, and he smiled back, openly and warmly. She thought it was really sweet that he hadn't forgotten her and had made the effort. She didn't feel pressured, on the contrary, she was really flattered by his letter. She really liked him and he seemed very nice. Certainly not an ordinary man. With a slow movement, she took a pen from the breast pocket of her blouse and wrote her phone number on the letter, holding it out to Yuri again.

"Here's my number. I'll be on shore leave next week. We can do something together," she said in a quiet voice. Yuri's whole face lit up.

"Thank you, I look forward to it," he nodded. Then he pulled a business card for the agency out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Just in case, I give you my number too." He had learned from Abigail's mistake when she had lost Viktor Konakov's phone number to the salty seawater during her escape from the Sea Lord.

"Thank you," Lisa replied as she took the card. She paused for a moment as she read the inscription. "TRAP Agency - The Agency for Special Cases? That sounds exciting. I can't wait to hear what you have to say," she smiled. Neither of them had noticed that Cassy and Rebecca, Lisa's colleagues, were standing around the corner listening with pricked up ears, then nodded to each other with a grin and scurried back to the pantry.

Sunday, 09:30 a.m.

Ralph turned the agency car into the street of the waste recycling plant in the industrial district. Unlike usual, they had barely exchanged a word during the drive. When they usually ran errands or visited clients together, they always had a lot to talk about, joking and laughing. Ralph had experienced a lot of crazy things and was a never-ending source of exciting and strange stories. Today was different, the mood was tense and gloomy. Yanny sat in the back seat, meticulously checking her equipment and weapons, adding a drop of oil from a tiny bottle here and there and tightening the buckles on her bulletproof vest and reinforced gloves. She had chosen two of the heavy silver Colts in the largest caliber available, with modified cartridges, which she now carried in holsters on her thighs. She also carried a fully automatic machine gun and two hand grenades of disproportionately high explosive power in her trouser pockets. Two full cartridge belts hung from her torso. The little stuffed llama, on the other hand, sat next to her in the back seat and watched as she checked her equipment again. Yanny knew that all she had to do was keep Lazarus at bay until she had the opportunity to strike, but she could not engage in hand-to-hand combat. She would have to keep moving, not stand still or allow herself to be backed into a corner. It would work, it had to. With the weapons she had on her body, she would not be able to destroy her opponent, who carried the brain and the heart of Artyom Gromov, on her own. It would take more, a machine with enough pressure and a place from which her opponent would not move as long as he saw the chance to destroy her. That was why they had come here, to the waste recycling plant. The lines were idle on Sunday, no one was working there, and the neighborhood was less busy that day anyway, with most of the workers in the western part of the city. Lazarus' first attack on Safecorp had also taken place in this part of town. The security company was not far from their current location. He was probably still nearby. Yanny would gain access to the hall, turn on the giant garbage shredder, and use a simple cable and teletext Internet connection to contact Lazarus. If the others were able to destabilize him remotely, all she had to do was get him into the hopper of the shredder and escape. The energy generators in his torso worried her the most, as they would undoubtedly explode under the pressure of the rollers, and there was no telling how strong the pressure wave would be.

Ralph parked the car a short distance across the street from the recycling plant. He knew what he had to do, it was the same procedure as any other major mission. He would wait in the car and escape with Yanny as soon as Lazarus was defeated. If necessary, he would secure the retreat, a loaded pump shotgun was already on the passenger seat for that purpose. It wouldn't have helped if he had accompanied Yanny on her way. Her opponent had an almost perfect aiming system; he would be no different from the guards at Safecorp. As a human, he was too slow. For Lazarus, he would have been an easy target, nothing more. A few more moments of silence passed as he turned off the engine.

"I'll be on my way then," she said quietly from the back seat, her hand going to the door handle after a moment of fixing her ponytail. She reached for the llama and picked it up on her left arm, which the stuffed animal commented on with a moo.

"Just a minute," Ralph said, and Yanny stopped.

"Yes?"

"What aren't you telling me?" he asked in a calm voice, taking his index fingers off the wheel. She started to answer, but then stopped. He nodded slowly. "I'm not stupid, madame: the situation is much worse than you made it out to be, isn't it? This Russian fighting machine has blown away a small private army all by itself, and now a handful of us are coming to take it on. That's about the craziest thing we could do." She pursed her lips and lowered her eyes to her rifle.

"Yes," she whispered. Ralph sighed deeply, pulled a cigarillo from his jacket pocket and lit it, then got out of the car, walked around it and opened the door for her. She got out and they stood facing each other.

"It's none of my business, but did Harry ever tell you?" he finally asked, chewing on the cigarillo.

"What?" Yanny tilted her head and looked at him curiously.

"Well, that he loves you? What else?" Ralph grinned briefly.

"H-how? What do you mean? N-no, how do you know that? Did he ever mention anything to you?" she asked uncertainly.

"He doesn't have to say anything, a blind man can see that. Or do you think an old fool like me wouldn't notice? He lights up like a bedside lamp when he's near you," he winked at her. "Do you like him too?" She nodded at the question so quickly that her ponytail bobbed and a smile played across her lips.

"But you didn't tell him?" he asked, closing one eye skeptically.

"No, never really directly. But we held hands twice," she whispered. Ralph sighed deeper, shook his head and rubbed his eyes. Then he took a deep breath and blew the blue haze in another direction.

"Oh dear... Madame. This isn't going to work. Why are you two dragging your feet when everything is so clear?"

"I'm not a normal woman... He..." she replied hesitantly.

"Could you imagine our Harry with a *normal* woman? Some kind of housewife, perhaps?" Ralph fended her off with a grin. "If you really like someone, you have to tell them. Otherwise, it might be too late, and you'll regret it, and you won't get another chance. But you'll get your chance, I know you will. You're going to kick Lazarus' ass, no matter how strong he is and no matter how shitty everything looks. And then we're gonna get out of here. I believe in you, I did from the first moment. Yanny closed her eyes and they hugged each other for a long time.

"Thank you," she said in a slightly shaky voice.

"I'll wait for you here. Don't worry," he nodded with a smile. Then they parted, and Yanny marched toward the large gray enclosure without looking back. The little llama pressed close to her.