* * *

My thoughts, having taken a turn, went back to the upcoming dialogue with the boss. But the more I thought about it, the more I got fixated on it, and that was better avoided. So once again, remembering the diagrams I had drawn, I tried to put thinking about the subject out of my mind, delving deeper into reading articles on the Order. But because all the texts I found were written in dry, formal language, the reading was hard, and my interest in the subject was waning with every line I managed to wade through the clerical language. After about half an hour, I gave up, just reading the excerpts in an encyclopedic article on Slayers.

As soon as I closed my browser, a thought occurred to me:

If the boys are being released from the hospital today because they have recovered... And I was not just praying for their health...

Picking up my smartphone from my desk, I immediately dialed Descart' number.

"Howe! Congratulations on your trip!" Rick greeted me in a chipper voice. "How are you feeling?"

"Norm." I brushed that question aside. "My question is. How's Slider feeling?"

"A-a-a-ah..." Runner muttered. "So you're the one who asked. It's all clear now. He's so good that he's having surgery tomorrow."

"What?!" I almost choked," What surgery?"

"What what?" Rick was surprised. "A nose correction, a change in the curve of his eyebrows, and a few other little things. I'm not a plastic surgeon, to say for sure!"

Gaia! How it slipped my mind? Slider is getting a complete identity change, and the guys saying something about plastic surgery, not just a change of ID.

"Utis, do you have a question? Come on, don't be shy. I'm busy running around like a squirrel in a wheel collecting tests!"

"Ah... No. That's it."

"Bye," Rick answered immediately and hung up.

I don't know what the same Meсk looked like after the explosion or how seriously he was injured. Lance's words on the subject were too vague. But I do remember what Gerhardt had been turned into by Smith's men. And now, he is fully recovered, and not much time has passed. Of course, I have heard hundreds of stories in my life about the effect of the Prayers, but it was only now that I realized it was my request that had brought about his recovery. It sent a chill down my spine. I know that the Higher Power in this world is an objective reality, and I've seen the results of other people's prayers more than once, but... This was different. I don't even know why, but my recovery after the first Arch didn't impress me as much as Rick's simple words "everything is fine with him". For some reason, those thoughts were frightening right now.

I was distracted from my thoughts by the ringing of the phone.

"I have a business to attend to." Daas's voice is businesslike and dry. "I'll be late, but I wouldn't want to postpone our conversation."

"Me too," I answer to fill the pause.

"Then come down to the hall at twenty-three. I'll be there by then."

"Deal."

"Good." Having said that, the boss cut off the connection.

There's still plenty of time before the appointed hour. I was wary of burning out. The best cure for that would be sleep. But I don't want to sleep. Not at all. Not so long ago, to pass the time and disconnect from intrusive thoughts, I would have sat down to play. Now, instead of playing, I put on sneakers and went for a run.

Waterfront. Warehouses. The wasteland by the roundabout and back again. And then another lap and another. Until my legs were iron poles that could barely be lifted and moved, and my mind was a ringing emptiness of fatigue instead of thoughts. When I staggered back to my flat, I collapsed on the bed like a felled tree and passed out instantly. It was a good thing I'd set the alarm for half past eleven in the evening, or I would have overslept, so self-conscious was I.

I woke up in complete darkness, focusing on my smartphone screen for a long time, trying to remember why I needed to be awake by this time. When I remembered, I jumped out of bed and rushed to the shower. There was barely enough time to shower and dry off.

I went down to the restaurant five minutes before the appointed time. I was a little shaky from nervous tension as I crossed the threshold. The only other time I'd ever been more nervous was before the Arch or at a medical exam after my injury. The prospect of a deeper partnership with Ten Daas would be too great for me. Not to mention the fact, that without his support the whole idea of putting together a BAA team from the Goons becomes untenable.

The room greeted me with silence and semi-darkness. The main lights were out, and the walls were dimly illuminated by a pair of switched-on touch-screen smart tables. At the table closest to the bar, leaning back on the sofa and putting his hands behind his head, the boss sat relaxed in his usual wrinkled jumpsuit.

It was not at all clear from the look on his face what mood he was in or how our conversation would be affected by his concern for Illea. He waved his hand in greeting when he saw my silhouette in the doorway.

"If you're hungry, look in the fridge. Illea has left some salads." Judging by his tone, he seemed calm and not tense.

"Did she come in?" The words of the boss, at the mention of the salads prepared by the chief, made me turn in the direction of the fridge. Even though I wasn't going to eat now.

"Yes. We have a whole hall booked for someone's birthday tomorrow. So she came by to do the prep work. She left about an hour ago." Apparently, it's okay because the boss is only this chatty when he's in a good mood. "So are you gonna eat?"

"Later." I don't think it's a good idea to chew during this conversation.

"And to drink?" He nodded at the bottle of tequila on his desk.

His offer explicitly hints at Daas' being as informal as possible about our conversation. Well... Or he doesn't really care how it ends. Good for him, but I'm as tense as a strung guitar string. I'm still standing between my desk and the fridge, frozen halfway through like a Buridan donkey. Mentally cursing at myself, I reply:

"I won't say no." Not for the sake of drinking but to calm my nerves; the main thing here is not to get carried away with this alcohol therapy, and a hundred or a hundred and fifty grams would certainly do me good right now.

"Then get another glass and a lime from the fridge." There's a contented smile on Daas's face, he seems to want a drink, and he doesn't feel like drinking alone, so I think I got the answer right. "Don't forget to slice." I hear a whisper in my back as I open the fridge door.

Very timely he said that, or in my current state, I would have been stupid enough to just bring a whole lime to the table.

"Do you need salt?" I asked, thinly slicing and spreading the rounds on the first saucer I could find.

"I don't." The boss shrugs. "I like it better without salt."

He's definitely in a great mood, which is a very good sign.

Putting a saucer and my glass on the table, I sat across from Daas and tried to relax, stretching out on the sofa. Alas... It didn't work.

"Well..." The boss unscrewed the cork and poured fifty grams into the glasses with a polished gesture, then pushed me a glass. "To your return from the Arch." He winked and took a swig without a snack. "You're looking well." He said, setting his glass down on the table.

"For someone who recently had his head cut off? Definitely a good!" I grinned, tipping the tequila into myself. And when the lingering, scalding cold liquid ran down my throat, I had an epiphany.

Kronos!!! I'm an idiot! What did I just say?! And more importantly, why?! Fool...

When I put the glass on the table, I immediately met the boss's cold gaze. He was still smiling, but it was a different smile, not the relaxed one that greeted me, but a hard one, more like a poorly concealed snarl.

"I thought..." Daas ran his fingernail over the rim of his glass. "You and Illea had some sort of agreement, and the subject was closed?" Gaia... I said it. He'd have me for cutlets if he thought I could threaten the woman he loved. And a man with the Face of Odysseus holding a grudge is not the sort of threat a reasonable man would pass over, and Daas is certainly no fool, unlike me.

"She and I are doing well. There are no reticences." I tried not to show my tension, but I said it as if it were a small thing. "But I had something to joke about now."

My attempt to reduce everything to self-irony seemed to succeed as the boss's gaze grew softer and the fangs so clearly visible in his smile just a second ago hid back.

"Then..." The boss poured another one of those words. "Here's to mutual understanding." He took a light clink and drank immediately.

I had to drink, too. I was glad about that, though. The second drink, almost non-stop, did the trick, and the warmth coming from my stomach slowly loosened me up.

"More?" Daas asked as I put down my glass.

"A little later on." As alcohol is relaxing, it's important not to overdo it.

"There... That's better. You came in all twitchy." It's easy for him to sit here, sprawled out on the sofa. His future isn't decided now. "Now I see you've relaxed a little. Are you sure you're ready to talk, or should we reschedule?"

"I'm ready."

"Nothing like last time? Shall I hide the table knife?" I wanted to snap back, but I realized he was joking.

"We seemed to have cleared the air, and such incidents based on innuendo should not happen again." That sentence came out a little too formal.

"Eh-h-h-h-h..." The boss muttered and poured another twenty-five grams into my glass. "Drink up."

He did not pour one for himself. I stared at the glass in doubt for a few seconds, then drained it in one gulp.

"Relax." Waiting for me to eat a slice of lime, Daas said. "I'm not going to push you around. I've thought and thought and thought, and I've concluded that with you, it won't work the way it does with the others: a contract, a hire with a contract... Your Face, whether you realize it or not, puts a very strong imprint on any possible arrangement with you." It seems that the upcoming conversation is planned to be extremely frank. I don't know whether it's good for me or not.

"I don't want to play around with words, not today and not with you." He paused, watching my face, not sure what he was reading on it, but the boss spoke more harshly. "You're young, very young. That's both an advantage and a disadvantage. In terms of working together for a short time, it's definitely still a disadvantage for me. But if we can agree, it could turn out on the plus side." I am silent. I have nothing intelligent to say, so my lips are closed. "So many businessmen, entrepreneurs, or structures would give a lot to have someone with the Face of Odysseus working for them." I feel that in this case, it is not a compliment from his mouth. "But I'm breaking out of that potential crowd. My conglomerate of firms is running like clockwork. Yes, I can see that in a couple or three years, there could be a crisis, stagnation, and a strong kick will be needed. But I have an answer for that..." and this silence clearly implies a response on my part.

"Rick Descart." I said.

"Right." He nods and pours himself a shot of tequila, and I shake my head in disapproval at his gesture; I'm done for now. "I need Rick badly." I'm starting to get intimidated by his frankness. "But you... No, I get that you're a potentially great crisis manager, a master of unconventional solutions and moves. But here's a catch. Putting someone like that into a well-oiled machine is not the smartest thing to do. Because it can lead to both ups and downs... And why take such risks when everything is fine?" Again, I have nothing to say. "On the other hand, and let you go on four sides, it would be foolish of me. Especially how to use your potential talents without destroying everything around you is not that difficult a task... Yes, by the way, I forgot to ask the main thing, how do you want to work together with me, or am I talking for nothing here?"

What a curious formulation. He said "together," not "on me." A clause? No, it doesn't.

"I do." I could be a little pouty, a little self-congratulatory, but... But my answer is simple and straightforward.

"Because you've been so quiet, I was beginning to wonder." He could afford such a slight smile; the conversation was clearly proceeding according to his plan. I had no choice but to go with the flow, watching closely to see if there was a whirlpool that would pull me into a place from which there was no way out at all. I was expecting something akin to an interview, but not like this; he had managed to disrupt all my plans for the course of the meeting from the start.

If the vague hints I got from my Face with the Tear were correct, the original Achilles was not as clever as Daas. But he had other qualities: indomitable energy, a natural ability to command, an excessive faith in his rightness, and a capacity for work that would suffice for an army, and that's not counting the other talents... And if all this is multiplied by the brains of Ten Daas, the result is such a dangerous mixture that I cannot even find an analogy.

"Do you want one?" He pours himself a drink again, and I refuse again. "Okay, I promised I wouldn't talk a lot, but I got carried away. I'll cut to the chase. I'm interested in you, and I'm telling you straight out, no innuendo or equivocation. But there is a nuance, your youth and your Face create a rattling cocktail, which is constantly shaken up, and it is not clear what the result will be. So I thought, why rush it?" and now I'm surprised. I can't seem to hide it. "Is that what you have in mind right now? The team, the game, and studies?"

"Yes."

"So do it." He leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes. "Grow, learn, mature... You'll see how you do with the team, whether you can build it, organize it, solve all the conflicts within it, given the very difficult personalities there, and most importantly, whether you can use the game to help the boys find themselves and return to a normal life without risk to others." No, his interest in this is understandable to me. Rick alone will pay off any investment both in time and money, and if Lance ends up working for Daas as well... And that's not counting the other guys. "It would be seen from these results... A lot..." He crunched his neck and folded his arms in a long, unblinking stare at the bridge of my nose. "Interested in something like that?"

"Yes..." I wanted to say much more, but my throat was treacherously dry.

It wasn't what I expected when I drew the diagrams and thought about it. He offered me everything I wanted, everything at all. Am I dreaming? I was preparing for a battle, and he was playing a giveaway.

"Shall we talk about the details then?" Without asking, he pours both of us some, purely symbolically. "Here's to choose." We take a drink at the same time. "About the study. Screw the TUNG. You're going to study on an individual basis. Management, marketing. That'll be Rick's thing. Languages, linguistics, sociology of advertising - Illea. Logic, psychology, history - Lance. The exact sciences..." I'd guessed you'd find all kinds of specialists among the Goons, but it turns out you can make a pretty good teaching staff out of them. "Here, I've got it all written out." He took a sheet of paper from his inside pocket and handed it to me. "There's a pre-arrangement with everyone. Illea will draw up the schedule." Something tells me I'll remember studying at TUNG as a picnic because I'm going to be taken seriously here. I already know very well how Lance can teach. "In a year, you'll have completed the whole program and passed the exams for the diploma." Daas gets to me.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"In a year?!" Here I couldn't restrain myself.

"Rick's closing his second degree in a month. Why are you any worse?" The boss's response to my remark was completely unpretentious. "Especially with a natural talent for shadow satori, it's a cakewalk." Eventually, he waved me off.

I think I'm being totally hoodwinked here, with a curriculum like this I won't have a minute to command. Easy for him to say, he had already graduated from university at fourteen, his studies were easy!

"What's got you all twisted up? Is the lime bitter or something?" The boss asks me sympathetically, and I try to find a sneer in his words and don't. "That's settled. Next. The Goon question, you know, in addition to the team and the game you'll be responsible for..."

He didn't finish, his smartphone playing a short melody barely audible.

"One moment." The boss pulled out his phone and stared perplexedly at the screen. He wasn't expecting any messages. "Ahem."

He swiped his finger across the touch screen and glanced at the text he could only see. His face immediately changed, turning deadly grey, and his eyes turned into the black muzzles of guns ready to fire.

"Gaia damn..." The boss sounded calm, but I could see he was in a state of utter confusion. It was as if someone had just hit him in the back of the head with a Hercules truncheon.

Without any sudden movement, as if he were afraid of breaking something with a careless gesture, he got up from the table and walked over to the bar. Where he stood for a moment with his head up and his eyes closed. Then he slowly lowered his head and focused on me as if seeing me for the first time.

"I might not make it on my own." He whispers as if talking to himself. "Utis, we've got a problem. A big one." Daas speaks calmly, but behind this calmness lurks such a storm that all my recent worries are just a breeze in comparison. "We need help." He leans over to the bar, and his hand reaches for the safe. Opening the door, he pulls out a loaded nine-millimeter Kron.

So big trouble?! That Achilles to pick up a gun? I have a good imagination, of course, but for some reason, it is now passing, mercilessly stalling in its inability to imagine anything.

"Trouble with Jiro." Every word he says falls like stones into the waters of Lethe. "Big ones. We may already be too late."

Jiro?! When I saw the gun in Daas' hands, I was honestly ready to run out of there, but the mention of the name changed everything.

"I'm ready." I really am willing to do a lot for this fat scumbag.

"Here you go." Daas holds out the Kron to me, himself unarmed, and I find that fact relaxing just a little bit. "Let's go!"

He walked briskly towards the back room, dialing the number on his smartphone as he went.

"Lance?! Trouble... With Jiro... Yeah. Looks like... Round up everyone you can reach. Sailboat. Call me when you get there. Me? On my way. Not alone... Fuck off. He's a big boy. That's it. The matter is closed." Boss's annoyance can be seen by how abruptly he cut the commander off.

My father once told me: "If you want something done quickly, do it smoothly, calmly, and without fuss, but without interruptions." So now I found myself seeing Daas's movements as an embodiment of this maxim.

At the back entrance, in a small nook under a dusty, muddy awning, was parked an ultra-modern bike, more like a futuristic, predatory, matt black, aggressive alien machine than a motorbike.

"Do you know what Sailboat is?"

I am not an expert on New Geneva, but I have heard of this building. Seven years ago, the city authorities launched a test project, New Life, to develop an entire block of social housing. A large complex of high-rises on the southern edge, twenty-four stories and two hundred and eighty flats each. Only one house was built, then, as usual, for good things, they ran out of money.

Two years later, something went wrong. The whole house cracked, settling on one corner. The tenants were resettled, and the building was put up for demolition. There was a horrible scandal with theft and kickbacks. Even someone from the mayor's deputies for construction control was imprisoned. Only with all these scandals from year to year, there is no money for the demolition of the house, nicknamed by the people for its unusual shape - the Sail or Sailboat. Thus it stands in the middle of a big wasteland covered with construction waste, a lonely, once beautiful, but now broken house that has become a refuge for illegal immigrants, homeless people, drug addicts, and much worse rabble-rousers.

"I know," I answer the question single-mindedly, catching the helmet.

"Get in. That's where we're going."

I have a sea of questions but no time to ask them. The boss also puts on his helmet, and as I sit down in the back seat, the powerful machine, roaring like a tank, fires itself a matte projectile into the night streets of New Geneva.

Up until now, I thought it was the craziest way to drive a bike than Lance. I was so wrong. Daas drove the bike like he was playing a computer game, not in reality. The rules, the roads, none of it was for him. Four times my jacket hit the walls of houses and the sides of oncoming cars, and once I hurt my knee in the bag of some passerby the boss missed by a millimeter. I have a strong psyche, but this time it asked for a holiday after the first five minutes, and I clutched at Daas's back, praying and praying.

When the roar of the engine died down, I couldn't believe I was still alive. The boss, without turning on the headlights, docked some rubbish and stopped the bike. I jumped off the seat and could barely keep from falling to my knees. My legs were shaking. Daas, on the other hand, dropped the bike and knocked over a couple of overflowing rubbish bins, hiding the perfect machine under piles of junk and foul-smelling waste.

The dark silhouette of the Sailboat looked out of place against the backdrop of the city at night. It might have looked beautiful when it was first built. And in a complex of similar buildings should have looked marvelous, but ruthless reality had made its cruel adjustments. Dark gaps of broken windows, shabby walls with numerous cracks, and dim light of portable lamps or candles burned here and there in some windows. This dilapidated building has a life of its own, dark and alien to the rest of the city.

"Let's go." Burying the bike in the rubbish for good, Daas shook it off. "So, our job is to find Jiro. I don't know exactly what's going on. I guess, but..." He said this as he headed towards Sailboat, which was no more than a hundred paces from our parking spot. "If you find him, you have to act according to the situation. Try not to kill anyone, if possible." These simple words sent a chill down my spine, so mundane was the word try. "Jiro was definitely in the building, but where exactly was not much information. He's in a room with the number eight on the door. I repeat, there's a number on the door, not in flat number eight."

"Got it," I answered though the truth is told, I didn't understand much at the moment.

"You go through the main entrance and walk up the floors, checking every door. I'll go in the back, take the fire escape to the twenty-fourth floor and start downstairs, checking as well." We walked so fast that at these words, we were already close to the corner of the house. "It's a dangerous place. Keep your eyes open. They'll kill you for a few francs just to find the money for a new dose. Don't get involved. Run away. You aim to find Jiro, not to get mixed up in shit. But if anything, shoot without thinking. Sailfish is not covered by the "silence agreement". I know it's a shitty situation, but every word I say makes us more likely to be late. So let's go!"

After these words, the boss sprinted from his position like a sprinter and disappeared around the corner. And I was alone in front of the huge twenty-four-story building. I was alone by the wide entrance, which had not been closed for a long time because there had not been a door here for at least a couple of years, and a group of a dozen teenagers between the ages of twelve and fourteen was sitting on the steps. They were dressed in whatever they were wearing, most in shabby jackets a couple of sizes too big, all smoking and swearing loudly.

They were silent as I approached, staring at me, and I pulled my hood up over my eyes and walked past them, ignoring the little pack. There was a risk that they would attack since the pupils of at least four of the strays were suspiciously dilated, but I was confident that I could handle them since I'd had plenty of training with Lance. And they were probably just sitting there as an alarm in case there was a police raid, which wouldn't stop them from mugging any wandering dawg.

I'm a little shaken, not so much by fear but by the whole situation. An unexpected message on the boss's smartphone; I think I can guess who might have sent it - a mysterious maiden named Pat. But what was Jiro mixed up in? However, anything could happen with his "ability" to drink. He drank with someone in a bar, passed out, and is probably lying on a filthy table behind door number eight right now under a surgeon's scalpel, ready to pull out all his organs. My vivid imagination immediately painted this picture in the juiciest colors... Daas is right. We must hurry!

The ground floor was almost empty, except for the corner flat, where a small crowd of drugged youths had gathered around a barrel fire and were listening to some punk rock I was unfamiliar with. They didn't even notice me. On the second floor, almost all the flats were occupied, but since there were no 8 on the surviving doors and the corridor was completely deserted, I ran through it quickly, too. The third floor greeted me with a fight in the corridor. Five homeless-looking drunken men were shouting and beating each other with whatever they could find. The noise was added to by a drunken-looking woman of indeterminate age, who ran around them and tried to pull them apart. I managed to sneak past them, though a couple of hands tried to catch me and drag me into the fight, but they were moving so slowly that they didn't stand a chance. There were also no doors with a figure of eight on this floor.

The fourth floor was surprisingly quiet compared to the previous one. And the doors remained on most of the flats. One of them still had the number four hundred and eight. The door was not locked with a key but with some sort of latch. Knocking would probably be a bad idea, so, putting my palm on my gun, I kicked the door open with a direct kick of my foot. The flimsy latch was not likely to withstand such violence.

There were seven guys about my age, plus or minus a couple of years, sitting in a circle on the floor in a spacious, dirty room. In the center of their circle was a huge fancy bong, which they were "smoking", obviously not tobacco.

"!####!!" My appearance was greeted with a swearing spree.

"Wrong door, guys." Immediately I replied, not noticing Jiro anywhere. "I'm on my way out."

"Not so fast, lad." A guy stood out of the circle, standing out with a bright orange Mohawk hairdo. "Pay a couple of hundred for the door and go." He unambiguously pulled back the hem of his jacket, revealing an Ocean War-era revolver tucked into his waistband.

"Piss off." I snarl back, showing off the grip of the Kron. "First bullet in the bong"

This threat was surprisingly effective, as the Mohawk-wearing punk immediately got a lot of hands on him and sat him back in the circle. Without showing my back, I put the door back in place, securing it with a lump of the newspaper I had picked up off the floor.

Uh-oh... Kronos! I think we got away with it.

With that thought in mind, I walked briskly onwards.

The fifth and sixth floors passed without incident, but I didn't find Jiro either. On the seventh floor, however, I got into a bit of a mess. Behind the door, on which there was a poster of some pop group announcing their performance on August 8, five men were making a circle with a fat prostitute, and, as luck would have it while kicking the door, I slipped on something slippery and flew almost into the middle of their "fun". It was lucky that everyone involved was drunk. With a couple of slaps, one hook, and I managed to get out of the fight, getting away with only a torn pocket of my jacket.

The eighth floor was empty; not only were there no doors or windows, but most of the walls were gone, and it looked like there had once been a major showdown involving grenades or other explosives.

The ninth floor greeted me with a half-asleep, overweight guard blocking the entrance. As he put his arm around his waist as soon as he noticed me, I didn't wait. A blow under the knee, then a pair of open palms to the ears, and then the handle of the Kron to the forehead, and that was it. The way was clear. I searched the hapless and sluggish guard, making sure he breathing and not tumbling down the stairs, breaking his neck. Behind his waist was a bayonet knife, not a pistol as I had first thought, and a thick bunch of keys. Throwing away the knife and taking the keys I looked out into the corridor.

The six diesel generators pounding gently against the wall closest to me not only provide good lighting for the corridor but also powered the flats on that floor. The corridor was empty and quiet. The silence was because the walls, floor, and doors were lined with soundproofing material. Crude, unadorned, but it worked. Strangely enough, this seemingly quiet floor seemed to me to be the most dangerous of all the floors I had gone through so far. It seemed behind every door there was something really disgusting and creepy going on. It was particularly disturbing that the numbering of the rooms was still intact. In an act of paranoia, I drew my gun and inserted a round.

I was lucky; the keys in the bundle the guard was numbered. Flat nine hundred and eight were completely empty, dark, and quiet. But the ninety-ninth, on which the almost obliterated "2008 is the year of shit" was chalked up...

Unlike many other flats I had seen in the building, which were large studios without an entrance hall or separate kitchen, this was a two-room apartment with a long entrance hall. Unlocking the front door as quietly and gently as possible, I slipped in as a silent shadow

It was dark in the hallway, and only the dim light from under the closed door of one of the rooms allowed me to orient myself and not make a noise by hitting the scattered cardboard boxes here and there. I could not really worry about the noise I was making, though, because apart from the glare of the light, I could hear rhythmic, drumming music coming from behind the same door. It was not very loud, but it was like it was gnawing at my brain with a kind of vicious animal rhythm.

Trying even to breathe less, I crept up and peered through the crack of the loosely closed door.

In the center of the large room, at least twenty-eight square meters in size, there was a double sofa bed on which lay a young redheaded girl, completely naked and crucified by her arms and legs with ropes. It was impossible to tell her exact age in the light from the ordinary wax candles placed densely on the floor around the couch. One thing was certain, judging by her posture and her relaxed body, the girl was unconscious.

That alone would have scared the shit out of me, but there was something far more frightening about the room. An enormous dark-skinned giant, over two feet tall and weighing 150 kilos, wearing a loincloth of some kind of leaf with skin decorated with strange, frightening, totally unsymmetrical patterns drawn in white paint, was dancing around a bound girl, beating the beat with wooden drums fastened to his belt. As he did so, he hummed something droning and droning, something that would go straight to the bone and make the blood freeze in my veins. For three minutes, I sat at the door, unable to bring myself to believe that the giant dancing the apparently ritualistic dance around the girl crucified on the bed was none other than Jiro! I could see that it was him, but my mind somehow refused to believe it; my eyes could see, but my mind could not. It was only when the song ended, and a dark, obviously ritualistic obsidian knife appeared in the hands of the dark-skinned aborigine, that I pushed open the door and stormed into the room, holding my pistol out in front of me, with the words:

"Jiro! What the Styx is going on here?!"

The giant, who had already drawn his knife, froze and slowly turned towards me. Our eyes met...

Never before had I seen such clear, blue, crystal-mad eyes, nowhere and no one else...

"Jiro!"

I managed to yell once more as the seemingly clumsy and massive body swung towards me. A moment and... No, don't delude yourself, I could have pulled the trigger in time. I probably could have. But I hesitated, unable to fire a shot at someone I thought was my friend. Whatever madness was overtaking him now, it was Jiro! Full of black humor, narcissism, and warmth, a big and kind guy! There was no shot, and in that second, the gun was knocked out of my hands.

I was going sideways, the elusive water technique, just like Lance had taught me. But... No... Just like that time in the restaurant corridor, he's faster... A grip with a huge hand, and I get hit in the stomach with such force that I can't even scream. Then I am lifted to the ceiling and thrown, like a pile of rubbish, across the room. I slid down the wall with my head down, my eyes spinning, my ears ringing, and only my lips whispering silently...

"Jiro."

"Wha..." I hear something completely incomprehensible in reply.

The giant takes a step forward, and as bad as I feel right now, I clearly understand. That's all. The dark-skinned native's eyes are pristine, not a single thought in them. I try to get to my feet, at least on my knees, to get to the gun that's lying just a few feet away, but my knees buckle, and I just fall into the corner.

The resounding sound of a bang brings the giant to a halt, the sound of a door coming off its hinges. I recognize the dark silhouette in the doorway from the thousands.

"Jiro! Get away from the boy!" Roars Ten Daas, who was in the right place at the right time.

Smoothly and somehow incredibly plastic, the giant turns towards the new threat, and what pleases me is that there is sanity in his eyes.

"Jiro... Are you there, hello...?" The boss quickly glances around the room and begins to circle the couch in a smooth, catlike stride.

"Not today, brother." In a kind of throaty, husky voice, Jiro answers him. "Not today!"

The dark-skinned giant was incredibly fast, his movements merging into one blurred trail for me. But even that speed was not enough to take Daas by surprise... The collision of two bodies generates a sound no less than a head-on crash of two trucks on a motorway. The chaotic flicker of hands and feet takes less time than I would have had time to count to three, and here the pair come to a standstill. Jiro is on his knees, and behind him, Ten Daas is clasping his hands together in a lock, trying to make a neck grab.

"Calm down, damn Gaia!" Through gritted teeth, the boss whispers loudly in the giant's ear. "Come to your senses!"

"Already..." Jiro's body relaxed, and I could see reason in his eyes.

"Ughhhhhh." Daas lets go of his hands, releasing the giant from his grip. "Fuck your Styx soul, Ji..."

"I've crossed the line, Ten." Jiro gets to his feet, swaying like he's in a groggy, just like me. "Completely." He points to the girl, who still lies crucified on the bed consciousness. "You promised, Ten..."

"We can handle it!" The mention of some kind of promise has a far greater effect on the boss than even the hardest blow, and he literally recoils from Jiro. "We will, I say!"

"You promised..." the giant shakes his head in response and, without any warning or transition, hits Daas with a right straight to the nose.

The boss dodges, but it was a deceptive strike, the crystal glare flickering sharply in Jiro's palm. Like cards in the hands of a skilled magician, an obsidian blade leaps in Jiro's hands, leaping to occasionally lunge at the enemy like a lunge of snakelike teeth.

"You promised! You promised! Promised!!!" As monotonously as if a robot was saying these words from someone I could only recently call a friend.

Every word is a lunge.

The lunge is not a playful, not a sham. One wrong dodge and Daas will be dead. The boss retreats as if mesmerized by Jiro's words.

"Promised... Promised... Promised..."

"No." Shaking like a dog after a shower, calmly, as if ordering a pizza over the phone, Ten replies, diverting another blow. "It's not over."

"You promised!" Jiro literally howls in despair, realizing that no matter how hard he tries, he can't even scratch the boss. "Promised..."

With that word, the giant breaks the distance with Daas, turns sharply a hundred and eighty, and lunges straight at me.

And I can clearly see Doom and Fate.

No, not mine.

His fate.

Behind his back...

The ritual knife doesn't have time to reach my neck.

There was a thud, a distinct crunch, and I stared into the utterly empty eyes of someone who just a second ago, had been called Jiro.

Into the cold eyes of a friend whose body flies just a dozen centimeters from me to smash the window and fly out into the dark and rainy street.

He doesn't care if it's the ninth floor.

He is already dead.

* * *