Chapter 3

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In the morning, the hardest part was getting up so early. I'm a night owl by nature, I'm used to staying up at midnight. Studying, especially in the first classes, was always Tartar for me. In addition, left to myself in this overcast wintertime, I generally confused the day with night. It was good that in the evening I guessed to set the alarm for seven. I had time to take a shower and drink coffee, which put me in some semblance of a working state.

I went down the route I was already familiar with and froze for a moment at the double-leaf doors leading to the hall of the future restaurant. I suppressed the sudden jitters in my knees and pushed the doors open.

"Good morning!" I open the door and stand half bowed in greeting.

"There's the new guy! Come in," Ten Daas waved his hand in greeting and beckoned me.

Next to him, on the other side of the bar, a woman I don't know is sitting on a high chair. The play of shadows makes it hard for me to estimate her exact age, but my first impression is that she's in her thirties. Her straight, shoulder-length black hair and the same distinctive shape of her cheekbones give away a touch of Japanese blood. She is not a shining beauty, but her face is very sympathetic, one might even say sweet, and she has a light smile that makes you want to smile back. She is dressed in a beige blouse, light blue jeans, and a bright green apron with a picture of a smiling smiley face on top.

"Illea, I'd like to introduce you to our new employee. This unkempt boy, who, because of his constant stooping and thinness, could be mistaken for a coat rack, is called Utis. He is a computer gamer and knows almost nothing except how to shoot his fictional rifle. And apparently, he's a good shooter. He is a pro!" And why did I tell him yesterday that I was a member of a cyber sports team for BAA? To hear that performance now? "But I found a use for him. He's going to be... A handyman. Basically. His job is to advise visitors and employees on new technology. But if you have to take out the trash, don't hesitate to harness him."

I want to object, but I understand that there is nothing to object to. The employment contract says that I am hired as a handyman.

"Utis... You're looking at the star of our establishment, Chef Illea!" The role of entertainer doesn't suit Daas, he's clearly overplaying it. "In my absence, she's your boss. Don't look at her kind smile and delicate fingers, everyone in the neighborhood is afraid of her ladle. Consider me warning you, and then don't cry in corners if you manage to piss her off."

"Glad to be introduced, Mrs. Illea." In spite of the chief's tirade, I still don't find her scary, and I bow quite sincerely. Illea seems to me far more understandable, open, and kind than Ten Daas. "Permit me not to be afraid of you?"

"Utis... And also shoots... A good shooter..." The way she said my name sent shivers down my spine. Illea turned to Daas and stared at him intently. "Ten, you're playing too much with fate."

"No-no!" The landlord immediately waved his hands. "Pure coincidence, no ulterior motives..."

"I remembered." These words were spoken in a tone as if she were putting a stamp on a document signed in blood.

"May I ask what you are talking about?" I don't like what's going on at all: what's wrong with my name?

"No!" I hear the two voices answering in perfect synchrony.

The way they said it discouraged me from asking any more questions.

"Did you find the games?" As if this incomprehensible scene hadn't just happened, Daas asks, and, seeing a nod of affirmation, drags me to the nearest table. "Let's see where we are."

"Golf, from one to six players. If I set up network plugins, it is possible for team matches between visitors at different tables. Dice, both regular and poker variants."

"Dice? Great!" and immediately explains his shouting. "They are very popular among the locals."

"Backgammon." Thumbs up. "Monopoly." There was no objection. "Hog."

"What is that?"

"Dice plus cards, a fun game, initially childish, but addictive and fun, simple and easy to learn. In the company of three or more visitors will go great."

"Let it be since it is simple..."

So we went through the entire list I'd made. All the while, I had the feeling that Daas was jabbering at me, distracting me from the recent dialogue.

"Here's a credit card," my new boss ends the report by holding out the means of payment.

"I downloaded the hacked versions to a flash drive," I stop his hand and am even a little proud of my ingenuity. As it turned out, I was proud for nothing.

"A word of advice," Ten Daas said, putting the credit card in front of me. "If you ever decide to start your own business, don't skimp on small things." he said, noticing my puzzled look that said, 'Stolen equipment worth hundreds of thousands is okay, but twenty francs not paid is a big no-no'" and explained, "It's about the risk and profit level... To lose out on greed because of fifty francs, having invested tens of thousands is the act of a greedy idiot. So pay all the games I do not need unnecessary checks."

"Got it," I whispered, hiding the flash drive out of sight.

Installing so many games on all the tables was not a difficult task, but a painful and time-consuming one. In addition, even though the hardware of all the tables was identical, there were some mishaps. It was unclear why the third table refused to start two games at once - golf and monopoly. Only the system reset to factory settings helped. I had to re-install the tool shell, menus, and other programs on both tables, identical to those installed on the other tables. This little thing killed almost an hour and a half of work time.

"Have some breakfast. You haven't even had your tea yet."

Once I stretched out, Illea was there, completely silent. In a polished, fluid motion, she placed a makisa in front of me and placed a deep bowl of miso soup on it. I am not a fan of Japanese food, but the plate smelled very appetizing. In addition, the chef put a spoon next to it instead of chopsticks and put a small basket with three slices of rye bread and a small saucepan with white sauce.

After swallowing almost half of the plate, I realized that something was wrong. The taste of the soup did not match its appearance. On the surface, it was typical miso, in which the main ingredients are, in this case, seaweed and wood mushrooms. But what it tasted like... It tasted like a classic Slavic mushroom soup with sorrel! Sorrel was cooked to look like seaweed, and large chanterelles were cut lengthwise and could be easily mistaken for shiitake. The sauce for this soup was fresh sour cream seasoned with finely chopped dill! I didn't even notice the spoon tapping on the bottom.

For the first time in many months, I finished eating with great regret, rather than just stuffing my stomach.

"Mrs. Illea," after taking the dishes to the sink, I approached the chef. "Thank you very much. It was delicious," I said with a sincere bow to express my gratitude. "It was very delicious."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." She just nodded at my words as if they meant nothing, and didn't even take her eyes off the stove. "By the way, the dishwasher doesn't start work until tomorrow. So..."

Her hint was more than understandable. Back at the sink, I washed the plates and put them in the dryer. While I was doing that, I thought about how wrong my first impression of Illea must have been. She was too cold and self-absorbed. And they're all weird, her and Daas, and that restaurant.

For the rest of the day I did a lot of little errands for the new boss: "fetch, serve, wipe, tweak". I was so exhausted that when I went upstairs, instead of going straight to the game, I took a shower and passed out for an hour and a half. Woke up broken, like a piece of meat that had been beaten off by Illea for at least half an hour. Usually, an afternoon nap for an hour or two keeps me fresh. But today was clearly not the case. Like a crab that escaped from a soup pot that had already begun to boil, I barely got off the couch and reached for the coffee maker and turned it on. After two months on sick leave, I had let myself go. I had worked only five hours, half of them sitting down, and I was already wrung out like a lemon in my tea. I should at least get some exercise. However, I was well aware that this was a good idea, but how many times have I gone over it in my head in my life? A lot. Have you ever exercised for more than three days? No. I can't lie to myself, to others - ok, but to myself? I could never do it.

The last sip of hot coffee didn't bring me back, but the desire to play a couple of games in the Arena did. Just to play without purpose and meaning, to fool around, limiting myself, for example, in the choice of weapons to one "Puma". These thoughts made me not notice how I was already sitting in my chair, and my right palm rested on the flat clicker. I had to overpower myself and start the training simulator instead of the alluring BAA icon. I already hate this program, but I have to allocate four hours a day to it anyway. Unless, of course, I want to have at least a ghostly chance of returning to the university team. And I do, I really do, more than anything. I press my lips together in a thin line and download the first exercise.

The simulator is written on the BAA engine so that those who train on it do not lose attitude. First exercise. Your character cannot move, only rotation and aiming are available. You are holding a standard rifle with a one-second reload. You are standing in the middle of a perfectly flat area on a small pedestal. Your task is to destroy all the enemies that come at you in waves from behind the edge of the map. Enemies are unarmed and just come at you like some zombies from a low-budget horror movie, and your rifle's ammo is limitless. What's the difficulty? Because in each wave of these pseudo zombies there are more and more, and they move faster and faster. Killing them is easy - a headshot and the dummy melts. But you have to hit the body at least twice. It's elementary. The only question is how many waves you can withstand before at least one of the computer dummies touches you.

The mathematical limit is forty-seven waves, more is impossible even theoretically. After all, heads should be hit as often as possible. Our captain Yol Shat was the best in this exercise on the university team. His record was forty-one waves. My personal best was forty. But that was before the injury, now I am dying at thirty-fifth or, if all goes very well, then thirty-sixth. This is still more or less acceptable to qualify as a heavy stormtrooper, but too low to play for a sniper. The first block of training is to repeat this exercise four times. After performing it, I have to admit that I am really tired. The best result for today was the thirty-third crowd of dummies. Looking at this result, my first wish was to turn off this torture to Kronos! But this was far from the first time I had seen such disappointing results from my efforts. With a heavy sigh, I downloaded the second task.

Angry at myself, or rather, at the poor results, I went through the full training cycle time after time. The result of this zeal was one thing: I went to bed well past midnight...

I was awakened by a loud knock on the door. At first, I didn't even know what the sound was or where it was coming from. The clock on my cell phone showed exactly five in the morning, with at least two and a half hours before sunrise! Maybe it was a fire! But then the alarm would be howling. I didn't seem to have any neighbors who liked drinking and late-night drinking with a habit of visiting.

Wiping my eyes and yawning widely, I got out of bed and took two steps, which was enough to peek through the peephole because of the small size of the apartment. I hardly recognized Daas in the dim corridor light. Even his colorful appearance was guessed at, rather than firmly identified, through the muddy peephole.

A lot of things wanted to come out of my tongue, and all the words of that great multitude, except for interjections and prepositions, were all obscene. Before I turned the knob, I took a deep breath, waited for another series of taps, and then opened the door.

"Good night, Mr. Daas," I greeted my boss with a full-face smile.

"What night?" I had to admit, the look in his eyes, as if to say, 'Everyone else is working and he's the only one sleeping,' almost wiped the smile off my face. "It's five in the morning! Take it," he slips a light cloth bag into my hands. "There's money and a list in it."

He's definitely waiting for my questions. Meanwhile, my thoughts are racing through my head at a natural gallop.

What the Kronos?! It's not like I agreed to that. Or did I? The contract doesn't specify a start time or an end time. It only says the total number of hours worked per day. That is, I probably underestimated myself. I could not be indignant, outraged, or accuse my new boss of something - I would only make a fool of myself. And this was not even about "making a fool of myself", but the fact that I had signed everything, I had not paid attention to this point in the contract, and therefore I could only be angry at myself. By the way, the contract does not provide for any penalties for early termination. That is, I can now slam the door in his face and go to bed. Of course, I would lose my job but even before that, it was not so attractive, especially in terms of salary.

On the other hand, when I signed the papers, I made a choice, and even if I did not see something or rather did not think it through but I made the choice myself, consciously. No one imposed anything on me, even the dialogue with Daas can hardly be called persuasion, there was no compulsion. My father always taught me that if you chose something, you should do it. You don't like the choice? Avoid it, shy away from it, but if it did happen, then be a man and do it, not whine and shirk. Not that my father was that much of an authority in my life, I treat him with respect, but without too much piety. And yet, for some reason, it is his instruction that I always try to follow. It is because of him that I try not to make promises, even if they concern the usual everyday little things. At school, it was easy: "Are you coming tonight?" To such a question, my answer was, at best, "I'll try," rather than a firm "I will." In adulthood, alas, this kind of vagueness and vague wording is available less and less frequently.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

From a formal point of view, Ten Daas is within his right to wake me up and send me somewhere. But would a normal person use such a right, and in general, what is the ethical element of applying this right at five in the morning, moreover, without warning?

I definitely don't like this situation, I certainly don't like waking up to a knock on the door at five in the morning, and I don't like working that early in the morning. But what pisses me off the most is that no one warned me. That's what Daas should have said yesterday: "I'll wake you up early in the morning, there's work to do". It's not a big deal to open your mouth and just give a warning. Nevertheless, despite the simplicity of the act, he didn't bother to do it.

My hand reached for the doorknob. Yeah, I don't need this job enough to hold on to it, no matter what. But... Instead of slamming the door shut, I opened it wider.

"I'll get dressed. Come in, don't be shy." I said these polite words with such an open and wide smile that only a very unobservant person would mistake them for politeness and deference. Besides, there was nowhere to sit down in the apartment except in a computer chair, but there was a couch blocking the way to it.

It was my choice, my stone, and I'll roll it. But I'll remind Daas of this kind of thing, and when I get the chance, I won't fail to get back at him. This is no time for scenes and scandals. Not because anyone would think anything unflattering of me. It's more a question of self-respect.

Apparently, this was not the reaction my superiors were expecting, because Daas, instead of coming in, stood still on the threshold. I seemed to have succeeded in making him at least momentarily uncomfortable. It was a small thing, of course, but it was still a minor detail that weighed heavily on the scale of my peace of mind.

"I have to go somewhere, don't I?" Pulling on my socks, I ask my boss in the tone of a joyful workaholic enthusiast. "I don't know where to go - the stores are not open, even the markets are not open yet."

As I tie my sneakers, I watch the landlord's reaction out of the corner of my eye.

I think I was wrong about something. My intonation and the way I chose to behave at first clearly took the boss aback but after the second part of my sentence, he came to his senses.

"The Uptown Fish Market starts at six o'clock. If you leave now, you'll be there just in time for its opening."

The Sea Market, is it? That's another part of town. And transportation starts at five-thirty. Besides, there are no direct routes there.

"You said your father was a fisherman. I hope my assumptions based on that fact are correct, and that you know about seafood," Daas said in a slightly irritated tone, watching me tangle in the sleeves of my windbreaker.

"I'm good at it."

I do have an eye for seafood. He guessed right, but he guessed right, because my father travels many thousands of nautical miles from Avalon-he loves the North, and the sea brings a different kind of gift there. I know how to choose for a different reasons. The only useful thing I did for my sisters was to go to the market and haggle, thereby saving the family a pretty decent amount of money. And you can't bargain decently without knowledge of the subject. Any good haggler can tell in a couple of phrases whether the buyer knows his stuff or is blowing snot all over nothing.

"In the bag is a list of things you need. Pick the best and freshest you can afford."

"I will." I was just getting dressed for the weather.

"Just a second," he handed me his bag, pulled out his smartphone, and after doing a few operations on it, he said, "I threw you a walking route."

"Um. Excuse me, chief, but will you pay for my new phone?" I couldn't resist.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'll go with a smartphone in hand in our neighborhood... At night..."

"And?" He obviously didn't know what I was implying. Does he live in a fantasy world and not see who's around him?

"I'm a fast runner, boss, but at night in an unfamiliar place, it's risky for fractures. So I'd rather pass quietly and inconspicuously than shine my smartphone."

"Are you even awake? What are you talking about?" He seemed to be genuinely trying to understand what I was talking about, but he couldn't. His bangs even twitched, almost revealing his eyes.

"There's delinquent at every turn, boss. And I'm not an athlete or a local godfather so I can walk around at night, navigating from a diagram on a touch screen."

"Аh?.." Did it really not occur to him to have such a simple thought. "Ahem... Is this a problem?"

Kronos!!! He's really asking if it's a problem? I mean, he can see me. Is he blind or does he think I've been blessed with the Face of Hercules?! When was the last time he even went outside? Or doesn't he get that urge at all? Though... His clothes tell you right away that you can't take much from the wearer. And the breadth of his shoulders, his gait, his posture, and his manner hint that Daas knows how to fight and, I suspect, enjoys it. So maybe for him there really aren't any thugs around, because they don't go near him.

"It's a problem," I answered calmly, enduring his gaze. I'm not a strongman or an idiot who doesn't know how to be afraid. Looking for trouble on nothing, just so someone doesn't think 'wrong' about me, is for other people. "They can also take your money and I won't be able to buy anything. I draw your attention, boss, such a thing would be pure force majeure, for which I refuse to be held responsible. Better wait until sunrise and city transportation starts. Well... Or... Call a cab for me?"

"At this time? Here? They won't..."

That's what he understands. Not every cab here at night would dare take a reservation here. And sending me on foot through the slums, that's normal for him. How do these two thoughts coexist in his head at the same time?

"After dawn. No. I need everything fresh." After a moment's hesitation, he suddenly spreads out a winning smile. "Follow me."

After these words, Daas, in his usual manner, took me under his elbow and dragged me downstairs, only this time not to the hall, but to the production room. There, he rummaged through some paper boxes and found a wrinkled piece of green cloth.

"Put it on."

Many people would have felt like idiots if they'd been asked to wear a stupid bright green kitchen apron with a huge smiley face on top of a sweater and a windbreaker. But I wore it quite calmly. If the beginning of this morning had made me angry, now my main feeling was curiosity. What was he up to?

"Well..." Daas frowned as he looked at me in my apron. "You look... Not really... Yeah. We should do a... What's his... This... Rebranding..." He sighed heavily and finished, "I've made some arrangements with the locals. As long as you wear this apron with the restaurant emblem, the punks and youth gangs won't touch you." Now, that's good news. "Of course, you can't make deals with the dope fiends but that's not a problem, is it?"

His gaze was as if to say, 'I hope you have the strength to deal with this worthless rabble'.

"Not a problem." I don't know what he thought as he nodded in satisfaction at these words, but I put into them the meaning that I could easily flee from such a contingent.

"That's good," Daas said and began to arrange the boxes that had fallen during his search. It took him about a minute, after which he glanced back, and when he saw me next to him, he suddenly barked: "Are you still here?"

I could barely keep from laughing out loud, so I closed the door and went outside. I didn't understand myself now, but I was actually having fun! The strange man with bangs covering half his face and a creepy way of moving was no longer pissing me off or scaring me.

It was dark outside, as it is only in dysfunctional urban areas on winter nights. The lanterns burning one by one, the high-rise buildings towering over the narrow streets with their unlit windows, and the shadows of the backyards brought back memories of many different horror movies or thrillers about some kind of maniac.

I realize that even this block of New Geneva's poorest neighborhood cannot be called a slum or a favela. There are no broken windows and no drunken or drugged bodies lying here and there on the sidewalk. It's not uncommon, but it's the exception. You won't find prostitutes in bright makeup asking for their clients at any time of the day here, either. We are even clean here because the municipal services work in good conscience. And in general, most of the local population is simple working people, not gangsters, drug dealers, or hereditary unemployed, who have become untidy because of their exclusivity and total ignorance. Nevertheless, walking into the old river port area after dark would not be the best and safest decision of anyone's life. I risked settling here only because I was familiar with a similar area in my native Kitezh, and I was not fully aware of the size of the problem.

It's about the youth. It used to be that every teenager in the local family knew that he would work where his father and grandfather worked - at the Port. Now, while experienced workers could find work anywhere, the unemployment rate among twenty-five-year-olds was seventy-five percent. It was possible to get out of this abyss only through education, but you need money for that, or through sport, which is available to only a few. But everyone needs money. That's why most of those who can't swim out of here take the easiest way, forming packs - youth gangs.

The Sea Market is exactly four kilometers, eight hundred meters from here. How do I know that? It's simple - there is a municipal river tramway from the Sea Market with a ticket price of only one franc. It has a stop at the pier of the University of Technology of New Geneva. This is how I usually get to my university, so I know the way well. Enough not to get lost in the urban sprawl even at night. Besides, I'm sure that at five in the morning all the city thugs are long asleep. I was arguing with my bosses more for petty revenge than to really think that I would be robbed at this time.

As I had expected, I reached the market without any adventures, and in time for the opening. Despite the early hour, there were a lot of customers. Most of them were from various restaurants, cafes, or eateries, but there were also quite a few retirees and lovers of the freshest seafood.

The list given to me by Daas was surprisingly small, only four items, and I didn't have to take much, at most for two or three servings of food. I had not been sent here for restaurant supplies, but some other reason. I had hoped to dispel my bad mood, which arose in connection with such an early awakening, by arguing with the traders, but haggling with such a minimum amount of purchases is not an easy task. Few vendors will agree to knock down the price on such a small purchase. Nevertheless, this is a market, which means it is possible. Yes, of course, I had to spend extra time, but I still managed to find the most cooperative sellers and buy the best goods, paying two-thirds of the allocated amount.

The way back also passed without any excesses. As I approached the house where I now live and work, I remembered that last night the scaffolding had to be removed from the facade of the restaurant. It had already dawned, so I could see what style of decoration Ten Daas had chosen for his "brainchild". What I saw made me "drop my jaw on the pavement" with amazement.

The façade of the building looked nothing like the one that had just been repaired. It could be described as "gray" at best. I'd even say shabby gray... It was dull and drab, and no different from any other house on the block. And the sign? No illumination, no volumetric letters, which even the most run-down bakery could afford. Just an inscription in beige on gray "Slavic-Japanese cuisine," and even the name is not own, at least some! And what is this strange mix of Slavic-Japanese? There is no such common cuisine and tradition. What the workers were doing here for a month? Before and after repair it seems that nothing has changed. Except for the smiley faces glued to the glass facade.

To get a good look at them, I went a little closer. And immediately noticed the difference between what was and what was now. It was the windows. Instead of the old windows, there were now one-way permeable panes with nanocomposite coating, and from a company that is the world leader in the production of armored glass. Crouching next to the window opening, I could see that the frames themselves were reinforced.

I think if someone tries to rip them out by hooking them and ripping even with a powerful jeep, he will be in for a nasty surprise. Then he examined the front door and concluded that behind it one could hide from a machine gun as well. This outwardly unrepresentative "repair," I think, cost Daas an exorbitant amount of money. Most likely, he is only a "hired manager" in this business, while much more serious people are in charge. Everything is just in his name on paper. A state-of-the-art interior, an armored but not at all attractive façade, a cool chef who agreed to work in a place without a proper signboard - I have only one guess as to why all this doesn't look like the ravings of a madman.

Wouldn't this place become some sort of meeting place for the mafia or yakuza, if not the headquarters of one of the gangs? Yes, the neighborhood is poor, to say the least, but the police are rarely here. And the abandoned warehouses of the old port are an ideal place to store anything - weapons, drugs, live goods... One discrepancy: I don't remember any serious gang having such a symbol - a smiley face.

What have I gotten myself into? Shouldn't I quickly pack my bags and look for another apartment and a quieter income?

After finishing this superficial inspection, I also found vibration mufflers on the windows, such are usually put so that no one can read the sound behind the glass with vibration-sensitive equipment. How did I know all this? When I was in high school, I worked part-time as a courier for a surveillance equipment company. Of course, I couldn't install such equipment myself, but I don't have any trouble recognizing familiar equipment. Thus, the version about the place of "negotiations" for those who do not get along with the law was further confirmed.

I was about to go and quit when it suddenly dawned on me that if this place was owned by a syndicate, a yakuza, or middlemen, it was now the safest place in the whole neighborhood. The bulletproof windows are more of a "tribute to tradition." The last gang war on Avalon was before I was born. There were occasional street shootings or some explosions, but it was mostly migrant or out-of-town gangster conflicts. And New Geneva was a very quiet city in that respect. No, that doesn't mean that there wasn't a lot of crime. Not at all. According to statistics, the number of fatal crimes per thousand inhabitants in our capital is not much different from the same number in any other city with a population of millions.

But almost all these murders on Avalon, unlike elsewhere, do without shooting. "Islands don't like noise," were the words the tabloids attributed to the leader of the Syndicate. They were said twenty years ago, after the "big showdown" - a large-scale war of the underworld, which lasted almost three years and took several thousand lives.

After thinking about it, I walked around the house and came in through the service entrance. By the time I opened the doors leading to the lobby of the restaurant, I had already changed my mind about quitting.

"What were you doing at the windows?" Daas immediately hovered over me.

Damned Kronos, the windows are transparent on this side, and besides, the sun has been up for half an hour, and the whole street is as plain as day.

"I was surprised at the quality of the facade repair," I answered quite sincerely so that the intonation of the interlocutor did not understand whether I was speaking seriously or mockingly.

"And what do you think?"

That question almost threw me off balance. Does he think someone might like it?

"That's amazing!" Without telling a single lie, I answer my boss, looking straight into his eyes (or where they should be, somewhere under the bangs).

"Put what you bought on the table." Apparently, realizing that any questions would bounce off me like pellets off a battleship's armor belt, Daas preferred to switch to another subject.

"Here's everything we ordered: green mussels, a dozen. Sirloin tu..."

"Do I look so dumb that I'm incapable of remembering that list I gave you myself?"

My imagination was already painting a scene in which, after the end of that sentence, my nose would break from the impact of his fist. So obvious was his irritation and barely contained sudden anger. But instead of punching, he turned back to the stove and muttered: "Arrange everything and get it ready for cutting. If you have anything left over after you buy it, you can keep it."

He has no idea how much I discounted the price because what he's offering to take away is equal to about two days of my earnings! However, if you listen to the humming of my tired legs from the morning, I certainly earned it.

While I was laying out food and taking out knives, Ten Daas turned on the stove and put a couple of pots and pans on it.

"Take off your jacket and put on a clean apron on the counter over there. You're going to help."

"But I can't cook!!!

Very slowly, like in a slide show, Daas looked away from the products and lifted his head. His words echoed through the room like boulders thrown by a Cyclops into the sea:

"Do... You... Think... I... Can?!" How does he do that? His every word made my body flinch as if it had been hit by bullets. It was a good thing the sentence was short, and he changed his tone by asking that rhetorical question. "No one's forcing you to cook. You're just going to help."

"Gotcha."

"That's good," he began to slice through the seaweed with uncertain movements. "We're not opening today. The "right" official in charge of licensing sprained his ankle last night." I could hear the chief's voice of barely contained irritation.

"Right" official - just one word is inserted, and immediately everything is clear. And there is no need for any explanations. It's like a key element of the puzzle, around which everything comes together effortlessly, somehow by itself. Maybe I should ask Daas to give me some lessons in rhetoric. But that thought is quickly pushed to the periphery because I'm not very good at working with a knife and thinking about extraneous things.

Shifting to the stove and dumping greens into the pan, Daas made me a business proposition: "The first two weeks, once we do open, are probably going to be tough. I'd like to secure myself and hire you full-time for that time."

"For two weeks?"

"Yes."

"From opening to closing?" Because, judging by the sign, the restaurant is scheduled to be open from noon to twelve at night.

"It depends. I hope this kind of thing won't be necessary, but just in case..."

"There will be no more assignments like this morning?"

"There will be. And there will be tomorrow. Think of buying fresh food as half your job."

"I couldn't work at that pace for long. I'd have to wake up at five in the morning and go to bed after midnight," I negatively shook my head. It's a shame, I've already calculated how much money I'll make from overtime but I can't handle that kind of work, so I'll have to give it up.

"Why are you so frail?" No, it's not sympathy but it's not contempt either, it's more like sincere bewilderment, that's what you hear in his voice. It makes me feel a little ashamed that I've let myself go so badly. It's strange, I have years of school immunity to such statements from anyone, and here I almost blushed. "Then you'll work as long as you can."

"And after delivering the groceries, I can go to my bed until noon," I put my stipulation.

"First you help me, then you taste what's cooked, and then you go," he glanced at his watch. "So you can go to sleep at about half-past nine in the morning."

Nodding at his words like a Han dummy, I almost missed a key detail. Do I have to taste everything he's trying to cook right now? And he is trying, not cooking. Even to me, a complete ignoramus in cooking, it catches my eye. This overcooked cabbage, which he will now turn into charcoal, for sure, I will not even try!

"Tasting only what at least looks edible is one. And double payment for hours over and above the contract, that's two." I was ready to haggle on the second condition but the first, I made a final decision.

"One and a half," he says and it suits me fine...

Half an hour later, having burned or otherwise spoiled more than two hundred francs worth of food, Daas still could not achieve even the semblance of an edible meal. This guy was unbelievable in his mistakes. No, no doubt he could make scrambled eggs without difficulty. But he was trying to make dishes from the recipes of the best chefs, judging by that e-book he was constantly checking against. Sometimes I was tempted to advise him to start with something simpler, but I quickly put that out of my mind.

"Are you sure you won't try it?" With these words, Ten Daas tried to move a plate of overcooked shrimp, filled to the brim with sweet and sour sauce and chopped red chili peppers. Moreover, the recipe called for only a few peppers, but he chopped them so much that they formed a mountain. Even a mountain that rose proudly from the sauce sea. The panorama, "Fuji, view from the sea," is what he got, not what you can eat.

"No. I would be on sick leave with stomach cramps for a week if I even tried it!" I categorically refused, shoving the offered dish away from me with both hands.

"Or this?"

"No."

"Okay..." I thought he'd insist but thank Three-Faced, he didn't. "You can go to bed now."

"Will you need me today?"

"No, get some rest."

"See you tomorrow, then."

"Bye, bye..." He was more interested in looking at the results of his culinary fiasco than he was in dialogue with me.

I quickly took off my apron and hurried to leave before he changed his mind. I was sleepy but since I had a week of hard work ahead of me, I had a few things to take care of.

* * *