Chapter 9

* * *

The rest of the day passed without any incidents or surprises. There weren't many customers but you couldn't say the place was empty, either. Someone came in all the time, and at least two tables were always occupied. More precisely, this was observed until about 10 p.m., and after that point, no new customers came in until the closing time. At the same time, there was always a biker at the table by the entrance, which reinforced the idea that this gang was the "roof" of our place.

In my spare time, sitting at the bar, I wondered how I could find out more about Rick Deckart from Daas. To say that I would have been curious to meet the man was an understatement. I was literally bursting with curiosity. The difficulty was that, to the Goons, I was a "civilian" who would not even be spoken to. Nevertheless, since Daas was clearly familiar with the Runner, I thought about asking my boss about him.

Lex Alipov painted the talent of the Runner so well that when I found out that this player was around, I wanted to see him play. Up until that point, the best player whose game I could watch live was the captain of my college team. And watching him sit, watch his hands, and generally watch how he acted during a game helped me a lot in terms of improving my playing skills. Now I was consumed by the idea of watching Deckart play. And just to get to know such a talented player was interesting to me. And I realize that the realization of this acquaintance could backfire on me, because, judging from Anton's story, this Rick was in a real frenzy after his defeat. That is if he knew that I was CapNemo, it could be very unfortunate for me. But I don't have to reveal your nickname, so it's not an argument that would make me give up on the idea.

The realization of my wish immediately encountered unforeseen difficulties. Daas flatly refused to understand my hints that he should tell me more about the Goons. And when I asked him directly he told me with his usual directness, to ask them myself not to pester him. To my objection that they wouldn't talk to me because I was what they called a "civic," the boss replied:

"So stop being one..."

If only one knew how to do it? More precisely, how to stop being a civilian in the eyes of bikers. Because I don't know what they mean by that. I was about to ask Daas about this detail but no sooner had he opened his mouth than he looked at me with such a displeased look that said, "Why are you sticking to me like a duct tape?" So I preferred to postpone my questions to him until some time later rather than risk irritating my superiors over nothing.

We should look for a different approach. The most obvious option was to track down the Goons find out where their base was, and then act according to the circumstances. But it was also the stupidest of the options, for if someone noticed the tracking, all my current problems would immediately become small and insignificant compared to what I was getting myself into. No amount of patronage from Ten Daas would save me in such an outcome. It is often the case, though: the simplest solutions turn out to be the most erroneous ones.

What do I know about the Goons? Not so little, considering what I have read on the forum but surprisingly there is very little specificity in this knowledge. There are many descriptions, speculations, and rumors but there are almost no exact and verified facts. About the biker base is only known that it is somewhere in the old abandoned port warehouses. And it is such a vast area that it is a non-trivial task to find something there. That is, the forum and the network are no help to me. Although... Why do I need their base? Am I really going to get there, driven solely by my own curiosity? Somewhere I was carried away in the fantasies of clearly not here! The satisfaction of such curiosity is not worth the possible consequences.

Which way to approach the decision? I know this Rick isn't just in a gang, but he trains bikers. Makes them run and coaches them in the gym. Maybe dance from those facts, too. While I don't know where they run, and their route may be through warehouse areas, there aren't many gyms around. I don't think gang members train on "foreign" property outside of "their" neighborhood. That would be somewhat illogical. As Daas retreated to the back room, I searched the net for gyms nearby. To my surprise, there were only two gyms for the entire Old Riverport neighborhood, and they were all in neighborhoods closer to the center. So this was a dead-end, too.

In fact, why would I assume that bikers train in some common gym? That would be foolish of them, or rather, shortsighted. Most likely, they have their gym, probably with homemade exercise equipment. Such self-made machines are, of course, inferior to professional equipment in their effectiveness, but when it comes to the safety of the members of the group, it's better to train on the terrain under the full control of the gang. Apparently, that's the way it is. If I were the Goon myself, I'd convert one of the abandoned warehouses into a base and put everything I needed there. The same Meck or Anton don't look like fools, which means that my assumption is very likely to be true.

Besides, apparently, Ten Daas has something to do with the Huns. He's not in a gang, of course, but he's respected by the bikers. Right now he's the strongest link I've got to Deckart. I just have to use that connection wisely, without showing my curiosity so overtly. Where should I start my game? The boss here suggested morning runs. Maybe I should start with them. Something like, "I've decided to get in shape," and then smoothly shift the conversation to the fact that it would be nice to go to the gym, but I have no money for a membership. Given Daas' close acquaintance with the Goons, he might ask me to start going to their gym. And then I'd be on my way to meeting Deckart! As an initial idea from which to start acting, that's fine.

Before closing time, around midnight, an argument arose between Daas, Jiro, and Illea. Bartender and Chef tried to convince Boss that keeping the restaurant open this late on weekdays was a rash idea. It might pay for itself on a Friday or Saturday, but on other days we wouldn't see customers this late anyway. At first, I thought that Boss was going to give them a big blowout, as his nostrils flared wide and his head tilted like a bull's. But the opposite happened. After listening to the arguments of the staff, Daas thought for a while and then suggested that the statistics for the week, and if they showed that the restaurant on weekdays from twenty-two to twenty-four hours is not profitable, then the work schedule of the establishment would be changed.

This very logical and measured approach contrasted so much with his appearance that I was greatly surprised by these words. Once again, Ten Daas refuses to behave the way I think he should behave in this or that situation. Either he's a man of mystery, or I'm not a good judge of character. And it is more likely the latter is true because Illea is also incomprehensible to me. It was a bit of a shame because I had always considered my strong point to be the ability to read people's facial expressions and gestures, and it turned out that it only worked with children and peers.

At the end of the day, I could hardly go up to my room. I didn't have any physical exertion, I just sat at the counter but I felt as if I had unloaded a truckload of cement. Of course, training or games were out of the question. I barely had enough energy to take a quick shower. I didn't even wash my hair, so I didn't waste time waiting for my hair to dry. I just wiped myself off with a terry towel and immediately collapsed on the bed. I think I fell asleep before my head even touched the pillow.

In the morning, before going down, I checked the weather forecast. No rain was promised until the evening, the wind was also favorable and hardly noticeable. Maybe I should really try it. The only problem was that I had never run anything longer than the standard three kilometers in high school, so could I run much longer distances?

I came out to my boss, purposely awake, supposedly full of energy and strength. In fact, I would have been happy to sleep for another five hours. But if I had appeared sleepy my question about jogging would have sounded very strange, so I had to make the most of my acting skills to look rested. It was all the more frustrating because all my preparations turned out to be completely unnecessary. When I entered the hall Daas was not sitting at the bar as usual but warming up. He seemed to have already made up his mind to start running today, and the phrases I had prepared to convince him of the same were of no use to anyone. On the one hand, everything was going as well as possible, but on the other hand, it was a little frustrating. I had already set myself up for counteraction, and it turns out that the door that I wanted to break in, and prepared for serious resistance, was unlocked.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Are you planning a run toward the Sea Market, by any chance?" I asked after I got a list of groceries and money from the boss.

"I don't care where I run," Daas looked at me curiously as he finished his body rotation. "Do you want some company?"

"I'm not sure I can handle this distance from the first time," I turn away, as if in embarrassment but in reality, I do it so that the person I'm talking to doesn't see the smile on my face. "Just feel that it's time to change something in myself," I lie and do not blush. "Otherwise, I'm turning into an amoeba."

"Is this what you're going to run in?" Ten Daas looks questioningly at my clothes: jeans, sweater, and jacket.

"It won't take me long to change," I assure the boss.

"Well... Change your clothes, I'll wait... Not long..."

Since I had my sports outfit prepared in advance, the process of changing did not take much time...

The fact that I ran three kilometers once a week in PE at school misled me. At that time I was in a completely different physical shape, because of the strictness of the school program from time to time I had to do sports. But after entering the university I did not run even a kilometer, and I do not remember that I did exercises. So this morning I began to get tired when we had not yet run out of our neighborhood. Daas, on the other hand, would run forward and back, circling me and moving away again. After about a mile I was exhausted and had to walk. It was especially offensive that such weakness was shown in front of my superiors. However, perhaps for my plan was only on the hand, the weaker I look, the more natural would be my question about the gym. Still, it's a shame about myself. Daas thought he was in bad shape, but by the time we got to the market, he'd run at least a dozen, and he wasn't even out of breath.

My fears that the boss would go to the market with me, see my haggling, and consequently realize how much I was saving and putting in my pocket were unfounded. Daas stayed outside, saying he would run around the parking lot. He was not interested in the bargaining process, as he put it. Which was just as well for me. There was one big upside to this morning's run. I looked so tired and exhausted that it was an added plus when trading. Today I was able to drop prices like never before. But there was also a barrel of tar in this spoon of honey. And that barrel was called "the way back. Even though Daas took a bag of groceries, that didn't make running any easier. On the boss's advice, I ran until I was tired, then I'd switch to a stride to speed up again as soon as my breathing had evened out. But each time the jogs got shorter and the walking stretches longer.

Maybe I should really get some exercise. I used to think that the main obstacle to my daily exercise routine was that getting an extra half hour of sleep was much better for my health and nerves than spending those thirty precious minutes in the morning doing push-ups and pull-ups. But now the situation is fundamentally different. I get up before dawn anyway so the old excuse doesn't work anymore. There is also a second aspect, boredom, which is caused by the monotonous repetition of physical exercises. But this doesn't apply to running, it's more of a plus because with Daas by my side I'm sure of my safety from all sorts of street scum. And curiosity will help me fight boredom at first. The same curiosity that wants to know who the Runner is, what kind of man he is, and how he achieves his phenomenal results in the game. I have some suspicion about what causes his success but it's just a suspicion for now.

"For your first run, you're not as bad as I thought," Ten Daas encouraged me when we returned to the restaurant.

"Thank you," I breathed out, as I didn't have enough air for a more elaborate answer. I ran the last six hundred meters, so I felt like a stranded fish.

"It's hard for the first two weeks, then it gets easier," Boss decided to share his experience with me. The thought of two weeks of running like that almost gave me a panic attack. "It's just silly. It's laudable to get in shape but stupid in execution..." Daas turned his back to the stove and waved his hand toward the door. "Go to your room, take a shower, get some sleep."

Maybe I should have stayed, regained my breath, and asked my boss directly what kind of silliness he was referring to. But the thought of the shower and the bed knocked everything else out of my head, and I silently cursed myself for indulging my curiosity and crawled up the stairs rather than go...

To my unspeakable joy, Daas had asked Illea not to disturb me tonight but to let me sleep. So when I got down to the hall at five minutes to twelve, my condition was normal; my legs were sore, of course, but I could bear it.

Just as I thought, as soon as we opened a group of bikers entered the restaurant; of the last five only Meck was among them; I hadn't seen the others yesterday. Since they didn't need my help I didn't even get up from my chair when they sat down. Since neither Daas nor Illea chased me to help them settle in it was probably the right decision on my part. After a time when the boss was gone and the customers were gone, I asked the chief if Rick Deckart was among the Goons sitting at the table but she only shook her head in the negative. After a couple of minutes, however, Illea came up herself and added that Rick and Lance very rarely come in here. Her mute question, "Why are you so interested in the Runner?" I chose not to notice.

Today Vera was on duty as a waitress, and Aloya helped at the stove which was very helpful because after two o'clock in the afternoon there was a noticeable increase in customers. Many customers understood the touch screens themselves but some had to explain everything in great detail. And at three o'clock an additional burden fell on me. A lady in her fifties with a child walked into the restaurant. This child, or rather a nine-year-old boy was my extra burden. The boy's name was Rati, he was a second-grader at the local junior school, and his homeroom teacher had brought him here after school.

Rati was Illea's nephew, the son of her sister Karoya, who worked as an emergency room nurse. Karoya worked twenty-four hours every three days and was a single mother. So Rati was looked after by our chief when his mother was on shift. It was at the very table from the regular "Reserve" that was closest to the kitchen block that the boy was seated. What does that have to do with me? It had to do with the fact that I, as the lightest-worked employee, had been assigned to look after Rati.

At first, I thought it would be easy. All I had to do was upload some games to the kid, and he'd play with them until closing time! It couldn't have been easier. But no, it wasn't that easy. No, Rati wanted to play it was obvious but Illea forbade all games, cartoons, and other videos until the boy did his homework. Of course, it was up to me to supervise the process and help the boy.

As luck would have it, the boy turned out to be the kind of kid who had a pain in the bottom. He didn't want to do his homework, his schoolwork, or anything else. The boy wanted to play and cartoons. It was unclear why, but he knew the "Robot" at the level of an advanced user. He hacked the usual parental control unit in about three minutes! I had to install a control program on top of the standard shell, which required a password for almost any action.

In revenge for burdening me with this extra work I left him the right to watch all kinds of videos and text games, but in Gaelic. Because it was the main foreign language at his school, and almost half of my homework was in that subject. In the beginning, Rati was excited about cartoons and games but quickly gave up because he didn't understand Galician which is not surprising. Judging from the textbook they only learn the alphabet! And I acted strictly according to the teacher's recommendation because in the boy's diary it was written: "To put audio tales and cartoons in the Gaelic language so that the child gets used to the sound of foreign speech". Since the boy did not know that I was behind this "injustice" he tried to complain to his aunt about the "broken table". For which he received a legitimate slap with a towel - painless but a little offensive.

After finding out from the good Vera that I was in charge of the technique in the hall, Rati, like a clever child, began to "work me over". He wooed me, flattered me, clapped his eyes, complained about the difficulty of studying, and so on. If I did not have many years of inoculation in the form of my own little sister, I think the boy would have succeeded. Since no doubt had a pretty good acting talent for his years. Also, my experience told me that with children you have to compromise only on your terms, and in no case on the terms of the child.

So I waited until Rati gave up on "fixing the table," and made him an offer he couldn't refuse. For every example or task he did, I would play him a game of air hockey with up to three goals. For the sake of this even downloaded this game on his desk. At first the kid, of course, tried to get better terms for himself but I did not listen to him, and just went back to the bar without saying anything. Five minutes later, the boy came up to me himself and said he agreed. As a result, he did all the homework in an hour and a half today. And this time included our games, too.

Besides, apart from the lessons he'd learned, the boy was excited about the "process," especially since I'd let him win a couple of times. But my mood was going downhill, because, judging by the look in Illea's eyes, I'd been signed up as a babysitter forever. And my older sister had told me: "If they try to put you in a job that is unrelated and uninteresting, never do it well, never!" - how could I forget her words?! However, when the homework was done, I removed the restrictions, and Rati could play and watch cartoons, which diverted his attention from my person. From time to time the boy thought of me and suggested that we play something together, but I excused myself by saying that I had a lot of work to do and, "Not now, but some other time later.

Because of Rati's constant fidgeting and the rest of my work, I couldn't seize the moment to ask Daas about the gym. Asking more questions about bikers to Illea, who had clearly noticed my interest, seemed like a bad idea. The only thing rushing me, though, was curiosity. So you could say that I was in no hurry. That means I'll still have the right moments for questions, just don't make a fuss.

* * *