27.07.2024
Geneva, “Le Zoo” bar, 23:50
Bloodshot eyes stared back at him in the mirror, shadowed by the haze of too much alcohol. The night so far was... eventful.
Over dinner, he, Mikhail and Sofia, had gone from discussing electric propulsion to Tomas listening while they shared their experiences with Zyphron exposure at hour zero in the LHC.
Tomas couldn't shake the raw memory of Sofia's retelling of how she “accidentally” broke her hand to test Zyphron's regenerative effects. That kind of commitment was rare.
He admired her because he knew the pain broken bones brought, and she followed through with the plan.
After the talk, he was more than convinced that he had found the right allies; both of them were dedicated to a fault and ready to sacrifice their own well-being just to give humanity a bit more knowledge and a bit more hope through understanding the changes everyone would face.
On the bright side, Tomas finally understood how he came into contact with the Zyphron emissions. After his visit to Munich, he was traveling from Geneva to Sarajevo, and the turbulence he experienced around Geneva was close to the LHC facility; that's where he picked up the Zyphron particles… It changed nothing related to his current situation, but it answered some of the less relevant questions that were plaguing him and Mikhail all the time.
After the dinner and some of Tomas's own revelations about what was going to come and how he came into possession of an ancient guide, the other two were too shocked to continue the conversation, so they decided to go to a dive bar close by just to take the edge off their nerves with a few drinks.
Zyphron Specials were hard stuff… imagine playing beer pong with IPA beers and having to drink a few in a row; that's how one Zyphron Special feels, and they had 3 to 4 each. Tomas was, for all relevant metrics, drunk… Mikhail was not much better, and Sofia was almost passing out… so yeah, they were “processing” the shock of the revelations they received.
He splashed some water on his face and let the cold water cool the back of his neck before going back to the table, carefully navigating between bar chairs and patrons so he didn't accidentally touch someone or spill someone’s drink.
As a regular drunk in crowded bars and pubs, he developed a sixth sense to avoid issues that could be avoided.
Just when he came two steps from the table, he accidentally stumbled over a loose floorboard into a guy talking to some brunette girl, causing the guy to spill his drink on her.
“Oh, fuck,” Tomas thought.
“What the hell do you think you are doing, you old fart? Better watch where you go!”
Tomas hated this—the posturing, the tough act, the macho display in front of his girl. He saw it happening in real time and despised it because he was a Bosnian, he was a Slav, and he was Balkan born and bred. It was not in his genes to just walk away from a challenge, usually... especially not drunk.
“Look, mate, I’m sorry. I drank a few to many of these Zyphron Specials, and they kick like a fucking mule, if you know what I mean.” Tomas tried to de-escalate the situation, praying to God that the guy was not too drunk and would just move on.
“What the fuck do you mean? You ruined my €200 shirt and her—God knows how expensive the designer shit is—dress. You need to pay for this and apologize.”
Tomas, who already felt like he had apologized, just wanted to avoid the conflict, so he said, “I’m sorry again. Just please enjoy your night,” and pulled out his wallet, extracting €1,200 from it, just about to give it to the guy.
The guy stared at the cash and then eyed Tomas’s full wallet with a greedy glint.
“Not enough, buddy. Just leave your wallet on our table, and we’re good.”
But despite Tomas’ silent hopes, the guy’s reaction confirmed his worst fear: he saw Tomas as a pushover. And he might have been right—if Tomas wasn’t Tomas, after all.
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Tomas, who rarely—really rarely—found himself backing down from a conflict once it became clear there was no other way, felt the familiar switch flip in his head. Gone was the amiable, middle-aged businessman in a suit; in his place stood Tomas, 195 cm and 115 kg of Balkan grit, a man who’d grown up learning not to be pushed around. “Well, fuck…” he sighed under his breath.
He took a steadying breath, tapped the guy on the arm as he passed, and said, “Let’s go outside to discuss this. I don’t think you want your girl to hear the rest of our conversation.”
Tomas left his blazer with Mikhail and Sofia, signaling with a nod that he’d be back in a second. They were still chatting, half-asleep and oblivious. On his way to the door, he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up past his elbows, stepping into the humid summer night with a calm, measured stride.
Waiting outside, Tomas pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lighting one and taking a few steady draws, letting the smoke linger in the air. He glanced back as the musclehead finally emerged, his posture all bluster, clearly preparing to make demands.
Tomas approached with a cold smile and asked, “Would you mind if we walked a few meters and found somewhere quiet to talk? I’m guessing you don’t want anyone ‘overhearing’ this, right?”
So they walked. No more than 30 meters from the door to the bar, they found a secluded alley where no one was present. Tomas looked around to make sure there were no more people with phones and cameras. The last thing he wanted was random photos in tabloids about him in a fight with a rando nobody…
The guy propped himself up to his full size, 190 cm, trying to intimidate Tomas. He was still a bit shorter than Tomas but quite a bit wider—a classical gym build, muscles to look good, weak legs, broad shoulders, and strong biceps & neck.
But Tomas didn’t give a fuck anymore about the posturing or anything the guy might say. When they left the bar, the game was already decided. Either Tomas would walk out of here on top, or he’d be walking out bruised. There was no middle ground, and he was more than ready for that reality.
As the guy opened his mouth to launch into his tough-guy routine, Tomas moved fast, instincts sharpened by years of experience. In one swift motion, he closed the distance and grabbed both of the guy’s wrists just moments before slamming his forehead into the guy's nose—once, twice, three times—until his knees started to buckle.
He pulled him closer and hit him with his knees straight into the family jewels. Just as the guy started to double over, Tomas took him by the head and hit him once more with a knee straight to the face, for good measure.
The guy’s eyes rolled back as he fell.
Tomas crouched down, checking if the guy was breathing and putting him in a stable lateral position so the idiot wouldn’t choke on his own tongue.
Tomas stood up, looked down, and spat next to him before saying, “You should have just taken the money,” and turned around to walk back to the bar.
Tomas grew up in Bosnia, in a time just after the war passed, and street fights—especially for someone of his size—were something of a daily occurrence. He was never looking for a fight, but he never let anyone walk over him. If you do it once, others will come and try the same, and that was a can of worms he never wanted to open again.
Just as he arrived back in front of the bar, Tomas caught a faint, blinking light in his peripheral vision.
“Michael, are you fucking with me again?”
Still trying to calm his adrenaline down, Tomas hadn’t been in a fight for years, and this felt like riding a bike… something he knew how to do and he hated how much he liked the familiar thrill of a won fight.
“No, Tomas. This is an autonomous reaction to your actions just before. My system was evaluating your actions, and you unlocked a skill for it… one I was not aware you had, to be frank.”
Skill Unlocked:
Hand-to-Hand Combat (Brawler): You are proficient in attacking and defending in hand-to-hand combat without relying on a specific unarmed combat style.
Skill Level: 3/10
Reward: Skill improvement unlocked – 1.05x skill level × STR, resulting in stronger unarmed strikes and reduced damage calculated as 1.05x skill level × CON from unarmed combatants or beasts lacking Zyphron-enhanced abilities.
“Tomas, something significant has changed on Earth in the past few hours,”
Michael said, his tone turning serious.
“The skill you just received shouldn’t be possible without G.A.I.A. It seems a basic connection has been established between my systems and G.A.I.A.’s subroutines. It’s not enough for full functionality yet, but… G.A.I.A. is waking up.”
“We need to take Mikhail and Sofia somewhere private so we can plan and act quickly.”
Tomas groaned, regretting his decision to get drunk so soon. Sobering the other two enough for a productive discussion would be a challenge, but the adrenaline from earlier had already pushed him into a half-sober state.