Rotanev squeezed his eyes and held his breath. He felt that there, under his chin, were small daggers ready to pierce his throat.

But suddenly, the pressure around his neck was gone. The woman had released him.

A tingling in his limbs gave him the signal he had regained mobility. His feet responded. He blinked again, and the weight the trance had put upon his eyes slipped away.

“A Vicar, however,” she said, “knows when to act as executioner and put a traitor to death, and when it is wise to grant him a pardon so as not to risk their own life,” she added, slowly moving away from Rotanev.

There, in the semi-darkness, the Secretary realized that, just behind her, the figure in the raincoat and hood that he had seen at the entrance to the building had appeared. It was a man, no doubt about it, and his hand was outstretched as if it were a sword, pointing at the back of the woman’s head. Had the mysterious figure just saved him, threatening her with a deadly backhand?

“I think I’m done here,” the Vicar said. “Be brief,” she advised the man in the raincoat, and disappeared.

Alone, blessed by the fish tank’s glow, the stranger in the purple raincoat—darkened by the dampness of the drizzle—took off his hood. And before his face got exposed, Rotanev knew who it was. Now it all made sense.

The man’s face was covered with a coppery beard that had been escaping the razor for days, and a mane that was beginning to fit the qualifier of too bushy. Still, he was as handsome as ever.

The Secretary watched him while trying to mitigate the hammer blows of terror in his heart.

“Was the mask to hide your identity or your lack of hygiene?” was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

Broga tapped the communicator on his wrist.

“I tried to warn you, Sebastian,” he excused himself.

Annoyed, Sebastian Rotanev pointed to the phone resting on the shelf above the fish tank.

“I never thought I would need it today,” he said and turned, looking for the woman; behind him was nothing but the condo’s closed door, though.

Not wanting pauses that could turn into awkward silences, Broga took the rolled-up newspaper and holo-publications cards from Sebastian’s hands.

“Are you still going through the ridiculousness of announcing your achievements like this?” he muttered.

“Don’t you think it’s important that my people know about my new appointment?” Sebastian asked.

“You could text them.”

“True. It’s not about love for tradition, though; it’s love for ego itself,” the Secretary admitted, and taking the publications back from Broga’s hands, he tossed them aside and got close to the young man. He needed to verify that there were no superior forces controlling him. He needed to know if Broga was still the same as always, that same ferocious little animal that hid one of the most brilliant minds the world would ever know.

He sank his fingers into that coppery mane and rubbed it like a gardener, measuring how much a bush had grown. He was getting into a dangerous game, and he knew it; one wrong move and that little animal pretending to be docile could rip off his hand. The game was so exciting, though, that the possibility of losing a limb didn’t bother him.

Broga stood still, with those emerald eyes fixed on his.

“What did they offer you, Broga?” Sebastian asked.

“What I’ve always been looking for.”

“Uh, of course. Brun.”

Sebastian found it convenient to withdraw his hand and take a step back before receiving a paw. There was no trace of the charms of the Tau radiation in Broga, but there were traces of that false passivity which he bought the affection of his prey with; and Sebastian knew well that everyone was expendable to Broga when it came to his brother Brun, even him.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

So, what intentions did the young man have by staying there? To soften him so that the death blow didn’t feel so hard? The executioner had retreated, but the Eddanians didn’t easily forgive betrayals.

He hardened his countenance and looked Broga straight into his eyes; the boy wouldn’t lie, not to him.

“What will happen to me?” he asked.

“I managed to convince them not to execute you,” Broga said. “Your punishment will be exile.”

Sebastian took a deep breath. A huge weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.

“You won’t enjoy the benefits of your people when this is all over,” Broga added and pointed to his surroundings. “I don’t think you’re going to have such a hard time with so many luxuries, though.”

Sebastian nodded. Exile was a fair punishment, or at least he considered it as so. However, the yoke of fear continued to flutter in the pit of his stomach. Or was it a mixture of the excitement of being face to face with Broga and the panic of knowing that this woman could return at any moment and change her mind about his sentence?

“Good. Let’s get this over with,” he said and walked around the living room, hoping the trembling in his legs wasn’t so obvious. “If the military confiscated the Totem in the Southern Canyon, they would surely take it to the nearest warehouse within the territory which, if I remember correctly, is Bellatrix; about four hours from here. I could move my influences to give you a special pass to the facility, but that will take time and a lot of questions, and I assume you’re in a hurry.”

Broga didn’t answer. It was evident that time was running out.

“Very well,” Sebastian shrugged, “you will have to use the skills of your new girl friend here to get in. Now listen carefully,” he warned, “It doesn’t matter what that woman has promised you; if you plan to frequent their company, I’d recommend that you have a contingency plan in mind. People like her may be a rarity, even among Eddanians themselves, but her contempt for the Binaries is a common trait throughout her race.”

“Her race?” Broga’s gaze sharpened. “Last time I checked, those genomes said that you and they and I came from the same place.”

“You know what I mean,” Sebastian said. “I am a traitor, and you carry those proteins in your blood. They no longer consider us part of their people.”

“I know,” Broga agreed, and with the hint of a smile hidden under his beard, he took his hand and added, “Thank you very much for everything.”

Sebastian Rotanev responded with another smile. He opened his eyes. There was a dark ceiling.

Where am—? he wondered, and when he freed himself from the kiss of disorientation, Sebastian Mizar realized that this ceiling was that of his room.

Up there, in the ceiling, was the window frame imprinted with shadows; the gaping mouth of a hungry specter, full of little black spots that dripped off like threads of saliva. They were the shadows of the raindrops dying against the glass. Yes, it was raining and stronger than before; he could hear the muffled sound of water clattering on the roofs of buildings.

What about him? He was lying on his bed. His bladder had woken him up.

He rubbed his eyes.

The clock on the bedside table marked 4:05 a.m. He got his feet off the bed and put them on the rug; then, he sat up, helping himself with his arms so that the weight of sleep would not bring him down again. He waited until he woke up completely and stood up.

He was naked; that didn’t surprise him, though.

Looked back over his shoulder and found what he expected: a young man asleep next to him, with no other covering but the sheet. He contemplated him and recalled the events that had led him there. The Grenadiers had escorted him to the condominium, and after checking that everything was in order, they stayed outside, standing guard in the hallway. He had taken a hot shower and finally had received Jake, the waiter, who had finished his day in the cafe. The rest… Well, everything had turned out wonderful.

In the dark, Sebastian went to the bathroom, and then, as he was about to return to bed, something warm slid across one of his nostrils and touched the edge of his lips.

He applied a slight pressure to prevent it from falling, and as he licked his mouth, he recognized that funny metallic taste.

He turned on the cabinet lamps; the sudden light made his eyes sting. Looked in the mirror. Blood was dripping from his nose. He pulled a tissue from the medicine cabinet box, wiped it, and rinsed it with water until the bleeding stopped.

What the hell—? Had he hurt himself while sleeping and…?

And then, like the details of a lost dream when you wake up—flashes of a dreamlike experience that are rigged to hide from immediate memory to survive a while longer echoing in his mind—the image of a bearded Broga with messy hair, dressed in a purple raincoat and standing in front of him, returned to his consciousness.

He smiled, resigned.

Right! That cocky young man had been in his apartment. At what point exactly? Before or after Jake’s arrival? Who knows, but there he’d been.

And there was someone else, he thought and looked at the bloodstain in the tissue.

There were nosebleeds, and there were nosebleeds. He knew it well. Epistaxis used to be one of the body’s immune responses, warning that Tau radiation had touched it. Broga had come—with one of the Vicars?

‘I managed to convince them not to execute you,’ he recalled someone had told him. Broga, for sure. ‘Your punishment will be exile.’

Then he got it. After all, things hadn’t ended so badly for him.

Looked in the mirror again; he no longer had traces of blood.

He turned off the light from the cabinet and went back to bed with Jake.