Chapter 18

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"You don't believe me?" When he asked me that question, all I had to do was to wry my face. "You and I have already talked about the Faces. And no matter how much you've missed theology, there are certain things you should know. Like the fact that when one goes through the Arch often, one adopts many of the traits of one's Face. But it goes a little deeper than that. The worldview also changes... Or should I say, it doesn't change but it crystallizes. You studied the basics of psychology, didn't you?" I'm gesturing that I did. "Most people in their youth, like your age, are very maximalist. As they say: "If you steal - then a million if you date - then with the queen"! And the concept of justice is also exaggerated. If you have been lied to, you should at least smash the liar's face. The girl was groomed - that's not enough to break the legs of this womanizer! And so on." But once again he is right.

"So, a young man blessed by a Face, who resembles him in many ways, but the Hero was already a well-established person in his core. And the Blessed One begins, for example, to break the hands for a disrespectful look, because in his time and his culture it was normal. Or parents brought up a good kid who understands what is good and what is bad. It wasn't easy for him at school either, when liars and sycophants got high marks by cheating and setting others up. Then the same situation is repeated at uni or college, or work. And what if he blessed by Face of any Achaean, in whose culture the natural response to a lie is a blade in the liar's belly? However, in ancient times there was every second such culture, with a similar attitude to what is now considered the moral norm or in the most extreme case a minor transgression. Can you imagine the situation?" The picture I had before my eyes from these words was, frankly speaking, scary.

"But that's not all... Turn on the TV, read the newspapers, and all around lies, lies, set-ups, and crap is pouring out of all the cracks, flooding people's heads. Politicians who don't care about their promises, officials who steal everything that is not nailed down, and what is nailed down they sell along with where it is nailed down. Banks pull people into debt which is worse than any slavery... In a situation like this, those Blessed go astray. I've heard stories of an ordinary well-meaning person picking up a gun out of the blue and shooting officials or cops or whatever. Often such outbursts of aggression are the consequences of such a crisis when the individual becomes sick of the reality around them."

Daas interrupted, poured himself some juice, and only after taking a few large sips, continued his monologue.

"Of course, there are some crazy people who just want to shoot out of the blue, but they're the exception in these situations. I'll tell you a story," the boss sat back in his chair, turning down the fire on the stove.

"A very promising young man, the youngest commander of the Typhoon, he was only twenty-five at the time... " The Typhoon is one of the most legendary special units in the world. Belongs to the White Beret Corps, a military unit directly subordinate to the security council of the League of Nations. With authorization from the League, this unit can conduct operations in neutral waters and states with unstable governments without a mandate from those governments. Becoming Typhoon commander at twenty-five is the same as commanding a flagship battleship at the same age!

"During one search of a yacht in neutral waters, the detachment discovered that the vessel was smuggling live goods. In general, to put it bluntly, little girls were being transported there from the Fourth World for the amusement of rich "daddy". The boat was large and was used not only for transportation but also for the "primary education" of the girls. The crew of the boat, along with the "attendants" and a few special guests invited for the initial "tasting"..." Daas waved his hand, a little confused.

"When forensics came in on the ship, they counted sixty-eight dead bodies. The young commander snapped and cleared everyone out, except the "goods," of course. It could have been a huge scandal since among the "invitees" were some very influential personalities. But the case was hushed up, firstly, because the publicity would have hit the League's Security Service, and there was no kidding about that. Secondly, the commander turned out to have quite a powerful patron, and more than one... Yes... Of course, no amount of patronage could save "The executioner of the Indian Ocean," as he was called by those who knew of the incident, from retirement and demotion," Boss poured himself another glass in a gulp.

"All of us sometimes wish we could smack someone or even unscrew the head of a particularly prominent person. But we don't do it, because we are held back by moral boundaries, by our upbringing, or by our fear of the law... Morality has changed considerably in the hundreds of years that separate us from the Age of Heroes. Except that it has changed, this morality, while the character of the Heroes and their notions of what is good and what is bad have remained unchanged. As we grow up, we adjust to our world, we accept it, and even the Face has a hard time influencing this. But if one gets the Face early and is on the Pilgrimage very often, there is a high risk of catching what I call "reality nausea." With the most deleterious consequences, both for the Blessed One himself and for those around him."

Daas was silent, apparently giving me time to digest what I'd heard. On the one hand, what he was saying was wild, but on the other, he was logical and consistent. I wonder if he was talking about himself, in this Typhoon story. I, on the other hand, could easily believe he was capable of such a thing. And yet, I don't think he was talking about himself. But he told it as if he knew the person. Which means there's not much of a choice. There are three people who make me feel a literal flood of power, besides whom I seem small and weak to myself. They are Daas, Lance, and Illea...

By the way, I have no such feeling next to Rick, despite his legendary Face. But here, maybe it's because even before I first met him in person, I beat him in BAA. Besides, he's not age-appropriate anyway. Women, with all the current fashion for emancipation, are still not appointed to such positions. Minister of Defense, that's fine, but the head of a special squad? Yes, no matter how tough the lady is, the fighters won't accept her. So I'm crossing Illea off that list. That leaves Lance. Hmm, it fits! Only it is not clear what such a man is doing in a place like this. However, I must admit, the place is very strange. Strange, of course, not in its location but in the concentration of unusual personalities.

"It's not that bad in the majority, though," Daas must have misinterpreted my thoughtfulness and spoke in a quiet, soothing tone. "Social adaptability is much more deeply rooted in a person than their character. Usually, the influence of the Face is not so strong as to affect this personality trait so much. It takes a combination of several factors for such a breakdown to occur."

"The first is to be brought up under the conditions of the classical, old morality. The second is to go through the Arch at the "age of the revolutionary". The third one is to go on the Pilgrimage so often that a person's personality does not have time to re-adapt to society. That is, in six months, forty times at least. And the fourth is to receive the Face, which will aggravate all this. You understand yourself, the coincidence of all these points in our time is quite rare, not more than one in a hundred thousand. Besides, many of those who walk the Arch so often simply don't come back. Still, to put Feats on the assembly line, you have to be a Blessed by Face of Hercules or be on a great team, and people in this situation, as you can guess, have a hard time with that. So it turns out that these cases are not that frequent. And after a breakdown, such people usually don't live long, they either get killed by the police or criminals, or they end up committing suicide when the internal conflict goes beyond all limits..."

The boss was silent, looking at me expectantly.

"So the Goons are a group of people who help those who have snapped?" I'm playing along with Daas and inserting my retort.

"They're the ones who have gone off the rails," the boss corrects me, "who are trying not to go completely off the rails. Like that comic hero who pulled himself out of the swamp by his own hair."

After those words, the bikers seemed a lot more dangerous than I had previously thought. It was one thing for a gang, albeit a violent one, to which I could adapt, and in principle, it was clear how I should behave with them. It's another thing for people who live by the ancient tenets of morality. Here you can get stabbed in the liver, not even understanding "why, actually"?

As is often the case in dialogues with Daas, his story, while clarifying much, raised an even greater set of questions. The first and main one is: what does Daas have to do with all this? He certainly doesn't seem like the kind of person who has the problems he describes. He certainly has quirks, like the unchanging jumpsuit in which he seems to sleep, and the fact that he is apparently very rich but prefers not to show it to anyone, but that is something completely different.

I wonder if this group that calls themselves the Goons has been around long? And have they had any success in their main business? Or has it been organized by the very recently retired Typhoon commander, aka Lance?

The questions are spinning around in my head, colliding, breaking into constituent parts, and reassembling in a different form, but there is no clear picture. Because I don't understand the basics...

"If such cases are rare, and those close to a breakdown are obviously not very communicative and unlikely to tell anyone about their problem in advance..." I shut up for a few seconds. It's Daas's reaction to these words that are important to me. He smiles encouragingly, and I continue: "Even if someone decided to look for such people to help, how did this someone manage to find them and bring them together? And to do it before they died. How?!"

"It's interesting with you, you often see beyond and find unexpectedly right questions," he pours me some juice and, raising his glass, says, "Only I won't answer it, because it's not my secret."

Well, yes, and the story of Lance, which, if it got out, would cause a great world scandal and possibly put the life of the head of the Goons in direct danger. That is what he is talking about easily, and here it is a "secret". I'm definitely in a branch of the madhouse. So the "truth" about the Goons in the boss's story no longer seems to me to be some kind of crazy and overblown noodle. Everything is upside down here, from the restaurant and the biker base to the concentration of strange and obviously very complicated personalities per square meter, which is just statistically impossible!

To be honest, this frankness of Ten Daas scares me. I can't understand why. The boss doesn't seem like the kind of person who would share his secrets with the first person he meets and yet somehow tell me, a stranger to him. What was I to him? A temporary worker, nothing more. Sometimes I have the underlying feeling that I am in some kind of global test, which is, however, complete nonsense and most likely a manifestation of paranoia.

Maybe, since Daas is so talkative with me, I should ask him directly about his motives for being frank. Though for some reason that doesn't make sense to me, on the other hand, why not?

Before I could decide whether to ask or not, the phone rang. The boss, stirring the soup at the time, froze, looked around, and then began to rummage through his pockets. As a result, he pulled out a small cell phone, not the usual touchscreen one, but a cheap disposable phone. He stared at it in surprise for five seconds, and then recognition flashed in his eyes, and he accepted the call.

"The middleman is listening," said the boss.

I strained my ears and tried to hear what the person he was talking to was saying. Since, by all appearances, this disposable cell phone was factory-set, the volume of its speakers was turned up to maximum, which allowed me to make out some things.

"G-g-good morning, sorry to bother you so early, but your letter said that I could call from 7 a.m. onwards..." The voice from the receiver seemed to be that of a young man, very unsure of himself. "I made inquiries and I know that this is not a prank, but I still cannot believe that you offer for free..."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Just a second," the boss interrupted, and then he turned to me with his palm on the phone. "Utis, you can go, you're free for this morning."

As curious as I was, I still had to leave. I thought about hiding behind the door and trying to eavesdrop, but I gave it up, too unreasonable a risk to lose the trust of the boss because of such a small thing...

The day flew by in a continuous rush. There were more and more customers. In addition, as if by chance, came an update of the firmware of the "smart restaurant", which turned out to be glitchy to the point of no return. Because of the combination of these factors at work had to really work a lot and diligently.

I was so worked up that the next morning after a run, shopping at the market, and another morning of tasting the food prepared by the boss, I was very surprised by his question.

"Do you mind working today, for double pay, of course? Not for a full day, but to roll back the update and restore everything as it was, after that you are free."

For twenty seconds I stared at Daas in bewilderment before I realized that today was the new moon, which meant that it was the day off. I had to work so hard to forget that! Since I had no plans for today anyway, and after losing my bet I was happy for any extra money, I accepted his offer. I could have declined, of course, and played the game to my heart's content since I'd missed the gunfights in the Battle Arena, but financial pragmatism prevailed. Besides, if all goes well, we'll be done by eleven o'clock in the morning at the latest, so I'll earn money and have time to play a few arenas.

Rolling back the system is in many ways a simple thing, but as is often the case with the latest technical specimens, unexpected difficulties and bugs arise during this simple work. This time it was like this: connection was lost on one of the tables, the menu started to glitch on the other, the games got stuck, or some other little thing happened. All these problems were not so much difficult, but tedious and demanding time and attention. Nevertheless, by fifteen to ten we have almost finished with this work, there was a mere trifle - to set the correct operation of the tablets. I was already looking forward to spending the whole day at the computer when my boss's cell phone rang. Judging by the ringtone, it was the same disposable one that had rung the other day.

"Are you ready?" Instead of greeting and accepting the challenge, Ten Daas said.

"... I ... and." Alas, the boss must have adjusted the volume on his cell phone, and I could no longer hear what his interlocutor was saying. "I'm very... sorry... ...we're re... ...in... ... I..."

"So you refuse?" The boss interrupts the speaker.

"Yes." I heard the answer clearly. "I really... don't... do... but..." There was something unintelligible as the boss's interlocutor began to explain something very quickly and incoherently.

"I see," said Daas, as he listened to the rest of the conversation. "Well, I'm very happy for you," the intonation in which the boss said these words were full of concern, but I saw his face crease as if he had just eaten a whole unripe lime with the rind. "Good luck with your work."

When he had finished, Daas pressed the silence button, confidently removed the cover of the cell phone, took out the battery, took out the SIM card, and broke it with one finger movement. Then he squeezed the phone in his hand so that it rattled and crumbled into small pieces, which the boss carefully collected from the table and poured into one of the bottomless pockets of his overalls. Then he looked up at me, seeing my big eyes full of incomprehension, and said.

"Next time I decide to do something good for free and completely gratuitous, remind me of that point."

I couldn't find anything better to do than just nod at his request. If I'd only understood what he was talking about. I was about to ask my boss some probing questions that would at least give me some insight into what was going on, when a large dark blue minivan with tinted windows stopped outside the restaurant, squealing with its labored brakes.

"Gaia damns it," Daas cursed immediately. "I'm going to be uncomfortable in front of the guys now."

Four Goons jumped out of the minivan: Anton, Meck, Phil, and the biker I vaguely knew, a dense biker with a small scar on his eyebrow named Hotey, or, as everyone called him, Hot. The boss unlocked the front door with a familiar gesture, and the guys immediately ran in.

"It's cold..." Phil said with a twitch of his shoulders as the door closed behind them.

Indeed, despite clear skies and bright sunshine, it was only five degrees outside, judging by the news, today is the coldest day of the year in the capital.

"Hey, Ten," the bikers said hello to my boss almost word for word and at the same time, and I just got a nod.

"Aloha, guys," Daas stood up from the table and walked over to the Goons and shook hands. "Anyway, I've got news for you."

"Which ones?" Anton asked the question to all the bikers.

"My request is canceled."

"How's that?" The surprise on the guys' faces is genuine.

"And just like that, this asshole, who begged so much for the help, ended up solving his problems without Interference," the boss makes no secret of his irritation. "Well, it's better for you, you don't have to take any chances," he says, and the boss chuckles. "And since the cancellation was not your fault, my 'thank you' still stands." Daas emphasized the word "thank you" with his intonation.

There is complete silence in the hall for a while, and I seem to be guessing about the subject of the calls to the boss's disposable cell phone. From Daas's words and the overheard passages, it can be inferred that someone had a problem that could only be solved, he thought, by the Pilgrimage. And Daas decided to help him by asking the Goons to act as an escort for this man behind the Arch. But at the very last moment, the petitioner either solved his difficulties or was trivialized by the Pilgrimage and canceled the whole thing.

"Mm-hmm," Anton stretches, breaking the silence. "On the one hand, it's a good thing," the biker looks back at the rest of the Goons. "On the other hand... Ten, you can't do that... We've already set ourselves up... Morally and... Gaia..." Anton didn't expect to be in this situation, and he's having trouble finding the right words.

"Come on," Phil interjected. "What's Ten got to do with it? He didn't call the whole thing off. Or should we follow that civilian and kick him under the Arch by force now? Even if we don't break our necks in the process, it'd still be stupid."

"An is also right," Hotey interrupts Phil. "I'm already in the mood for a fight..."

After these words, I suddenly realize that I am familiar with the gleam in the eyes that flashes in the eyes of bikers. I used to get that glint before important matches. When you're not in the game yet, but you're already living it.

"I don't want the four of us to go," Meck hummed back. "I don't mind the rush and the risk and all that stuff, the adrenaline will come out of my ears soon enough. But... Only the full five. And to go just for nothing ... No ... We can, of course ... But somehow ... Why? I have nothing to pray for..." For some reason, I have the feeling that he's saying this more to himself than to others."

"Men," Daas said with a wave of his hands. "Life is such a thing... Do you at least want me to feed you?"

"Is Illea working today?" Phil immediately perked up.

"No, I've made some..." smiles the boss.

"Ahem." The Goons are bad actors, and their faces immediately turned sour at these words. "No thanks, we're not hungry," Anton answers for everyone, which the others immediately confirmed with amicable nods.

"Maybe..." Hot suddenly perked up. "We'll go to the Temple, pick up someone who's suffering, and go anyway. It's a good thing to do, and there's something I need to ask... Not that I really need to ask, but my sister has an exam tomorrow, so I'd put in a good word for her. She's a good student, but it never hurts."

I don't understand something. He says it like he's just going to go into the Temple and pray, not go through the Arch. Apparently, Daas was right, these guys are not well mentally. Yes, tonight is a new moon and the risk is minimal, but there's still always a chance of not coming back. And to risk so much just to help his sister pass the exam? It's not clear with helping others either, but as Lance said, "this is our stone," apparently, it makes sense to them.

"Nah..." Meck waved his hand negatively. "We picked up a man once, as you so aptly put it, "the sufferer," and that time was enough to last me a lifetime. What a bastard he turned out to be."

"Yes..." Anton, evidently remembering the incident, backs him up. "He's a nasty little man... He was..."

"Are you talking about the one whose Face turned out to be the court poisoner of Ji Jing [1]? Yes, I remember... That's when it got really " awkward." Phil's words made the bikers laugh like horses.

"Did you kill him or something?" Daas exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes..." Anton says with a laugh, barely able to speak. "We took one person with us unchecked. At the very beginning..." he waved his hand to the back of his chair. "He was such a creature, there are no words for it. And what prayed for, it is better not to recollect. So we tracked him down after the Arch and "that"... Then it was on the news that a brilliant scientist, a doctor of some biological sciences, had disappeared. An unrecognized genius who had been abandoned by everyone... In fact, he was a developer of genetic viruses."

It made me shudder to think what such a scientist could Ask of the Threefaced!

"You need treatment," Daas shook his head.

"So it seems..." Anton circled his arms around his surroundings, causing another burst of laughter. "But shit happens. , to be honest." The laughter immediately ceased, giving way to full seriousness and tension on the faces of the Goons. Apparently, the boss touched a sore subject for them.

"Lance is not a doctor," Daas cuts Anton off just as seriously. "He's probably got more problems than any of you, and yet he carries everything on his back without asking for anything in return. Have any of you thought about what it costs him? To bother with you? Or have you lost your mind and think he likes it? Shit happens. Fucking hell!" Suddenly the boss went wild, his face lit up with a predatory smile more like a grin. In one fused movement, which I couldn't even make out, he gets closer to the Goons, and then half a second later all the bikers are on the floor, and Daas towers over them like a rocky cliff. "I found you a man with the Face of Helem, a disciple of Asclepius himself, the best expert on intrapersonal conflict and the Arch Paradox that the earth now bears!!! And you assholes decided at the vote that you could do it on your own! Shit happens."

"Hey..." Anton voices, not rising from the floor or making any sudden movements. "Ten, we're... Calm down, ah... I wasn't thinking. Look at Rick, he's almost back to normal, Torgil's about to leave too, and the other three guys are all right too. I was talking about the four of us. Sometimes I think this is life for us. Our four, we really enjoy the bikes, the occasional trip to the Arch, and the fights with the locals and the newcomers. The kind of fighting that makes the rest of us cringe, we enjoy it. Living on a razor blade with constant risk, maybe it's us, not the Faces and this imaginary conflict."

"Uh-huh," said Meck, who prudently stayed down as well.

Retreating a few steps, the boss sinks down on the couch.

"I don't understand. If you think it's normal for you to be like this... What the hell are you doing here? Do you want me to make a call to Usima Tiggins right now?" I almost dropped my jaw, because according to rumor, that's the name of the head of the Yakuza on the islands. "You'll be eating that adrenaline by the spoonful with him, and you'll be earning pretty good money, too. Not begging me for gas! He's always in demand for people like that." Daas almost calmed down, and the guys sat down on the floor, still hesitant to get up.

"I just want to ask you... Do you, Phil, still think it's okay to send your little brother to the emergency room because he fell in love with a girl with black skin? Or have you, Meck, already forgiven yourself for the two random bystanders who died when you blew up the car with the drug dealers who were selling your mother's dope? Anton, did you stop seeing your beloved in your dreams, whom you sent to the Threefaced with your own hands because she cheated on you? Hot, I didn't expect that from you at all. Lance literally pulled you out of the noose, you were already on your deathbed. Need I remind you what you put yourself in the noose for?" Hotey shakes his head in the negative, and all the other bikers seem to have lost their bravado and are now sitting there depressed and not even looking up. "So you're okay, right? You sure?"

"No..." Anton, pale as chalk, answers for everyone. "We..."

"Don't push!" interrupting An Meck snaps back at Daas's words. "We're not kids, we carry our own stones!" For a second I thought he was going to attack the boss with his fists, but he remained seated, evidently assessing his chances in this adventure as zero. "We're not going anywhere. It's still early, and we know it... We've got a good grip on ourselves, don't you worry about that. But we can't make peace with our conscience for our past sins, so we go to the neck of any bottle... And yes..." Meck gets to his feet. "We owe you a lot, Ten, and we may have deserved the thrashing, but..." the biker points a finger at me. "Why did the civilians have to witness all this?"

Daas looks around, and his surprised gaze is fixed on me. It felt like the boss had simply forgotten that I was sitting on the sidelines. For almost a minute, there's total silence in the room. Then Daas's face lights up with a big smile, and he even slams his hand on the table.

"Ha! So it's just a small matter. You're willing to do a good deed and get someone under the Arch who needs it. We have a guy who knows too much, but you don't trust him because you don't know his Face. And the guy himself ought to go on the Pilgrimage and lift the curse he thinks his jealousies have begged him to do. Besides, it's a new moon tonight..." The boss gives everyone present a cheerful look. "Am I the only one who thinks that this coincidence is for a reason? And it's a sin not to take advantage of it?"

After these words, I stare at the Goons, and they stare at me. My head is empty and ringing and apparently, the bikers' heads are about the same.

"Why are you staring at each other like Trojans at Horse?" my superior grinned. "Take Utis and go to the Temple; I'll let him off work for the day."

"No problem," Phil snapped his fingers as he got to his feet. "I don't mind, I've liked the kid for a long time, he's got the seed of a real man in him."

"He's kind of a sly-ass," says Meck uncertainly. "I don't want to get into trouble with him behind the Arch..."

"He's just smarter than you, and even without Face, he plays better, that's why he seems sly to you," Anton teased him. "I'm in!"

"I'm in!" Hotey answers succinctly, raising his hand.

And everyone's looking at me now. But... Gaia... Cronus and Tartarus!!! I'm not ready! I wasn't even thinking. It's all so sudden. I...

"Utis!" Daas's shout interrupts my musings. "Don't act like a girl. Don't hold up the lads. Yes or no?! Quickly!"

"Yes," my answer was on my lips before I had time to think it through.

Perhaps it's better that way. Without this pressure and limited time to make a decision, I probably wouldn't have made up my mind.

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