6 in the morning. Sun coming over the horizon and the first souls getting ready for another productive day in society… That is what Czesch thought would happen,  as he suddenly remembered that it was a Sunday and that most mortals were still sleeping. He probably would have done the same, but he had decided to go for a jog of all things. He wanted to check  the city, and what better way than to run through its streets? He stretched up and started running.

Harville had never been a model English town, but it had also seen better days. Coal and iron industry had driven it to the town status, as shown by the countless canals flowing through each part. Of that glorious past, only the latter deposits remained, as the coal had been extracted decades before and the last iron deposits awaiting their turn at the execution block.

Certain parts of the city showed an almost post-apocalyptic look on what a depressed and broken UK would look like. A brothel next to an abandoned factory for condoms, closed shops everywhere the eye could see, drug addicts and drunkards sharing the streets at night, policemen more concerned with turning up home with their wife and kids than to get killed in a corner by a mobster. This was only shown in certain parts of the city, but it was definitely a well-known fact that mobs were running entire districts by themselves and transforming them to run as independent sectors. How they managed so was something that escaped the Kid´s foresight.

A bunch of teenagers started shouting at Czesch as they came out of a disco about to close down its doors, since at 6:30 all music had to stop playing so the staff could clean up. The music, even though coming from inside the locale, was a droning buzz of electronic abnormalities with empty vocals that echoed throught that empty stretch of street. The sort of music only drunks at 6 A.M would enjoy for an extended period of time, as the Kid was more infatuated with rythms and melodies done with actual instruments.

The teenagers were almost a perfect mirror to the town´s strife. From what Nate had told him about the spot, a lot of men from the city had taken arms after the mines closed down, and had been sent into a disastrous 1st war with Iran that was still bitter and recent in memory. The UK was hit bad during that one, losing quite the number of good men, a lot of them from Harville. Many kids were forced to grow up, fatherless, on the streets and, since communications between the troops and their families were cut short during the “Middle East Blackout”, a lot of fathers returned to empty homes, only to delve into drunkenness or gang activities.  The ensuing cocktail had turned a number of the youngsters in the town to savage criminals, interested in drugs, booze and sex… any way to escape their reality.

Harville was deemed one of the worst places to live in the UK, designated as a black zone. Crimes committed with handguns were highest in the town (Main reason why Czesch was packing the P99 with him), along with prostitution and outright murder. The police was always trying to catch 3 serial killers every single month of the year, which gave the police department in Harville both a good and a bad reputation. Certain districts were clearly bought, while others showed staunch determination from the army days. There was a clear disconnect between the well-off parts and the depressed ones, even though some of them were mere meters away from each other and were under the control of different organizations altogether.

Running through the streets had given Czesch a good feeling of the air that was roaming around. Even without many people, that scent of caution lay in the air like an ominous prediction that something bad was waiting right around the corner. Yet, from what he had seen in the faces of the few bystanders going to work, it almost seemed like they didn’t care. In fact, it was 8 A.M and people were behaving as if nothing was wrong with the way they lived, walking dogs and chatting loudly. Clearly, they knew of all the problems around them, but they probably understood that there was nothing they could do to change it in a day, so they decided to keep on living their lives and hope for the best… a sentiment the Kid could relate to.

Homeless people, who weren´t under the influence of the gangs, shared what they had amongst themselves, both food and shelter, forming their own small communities to fight the dangers of a world where coin comes in short supply and is the basic means of survival. The spirit of union is the one thing that can keep people going when nothing else is left… Czesch knew the truth about that really well.

After a 4 hour run, Czesch had got a general idea of the city he was going to be “living” in for the rest of the year. He got eyes on the city hall, the 2 malls, the churches, the monument to the fallen, the different primary and secondary education schools (both public and boarding ones) and other businesses and places of interest. It wasn´t a beautiful town by any means, but when you have travelled to the edge of the world and seen the situation some people live in, you actually realize that the pain of the citizens of Harville was quite insignificant in comparison, given that most sufferers could at least find an empty and abandoned spot to rest for a night.

The sun was already about to reach the top of the sky when the first group of clouds appeared in the distance. Rain was about to form up, possibly a summer storm. Czesch decided to head back home… that thought was still hard to process, but it would eventually grown on him after a while.

There really was no better place than home.

The first drops came silently, and quickly transformed into a booming shower of frosty rain, almost hail-like. It came down onto Czesch, who took it as an excuse to not have to take a shower… which was a complete lie, since he knew that the rain falling on him was probably full of some form of shit. That shower would have to be a double one.

To his surprise, the entrance to the apartment building was blocked by a lorry, the kind that helps with moving furniture and the sort from house to house. So, the family that Jeff talked about last night had arrived… at 11 A.M. Either they had moved from a place close by and wanted to enjoy the rest of the day in peace or they had been driving all night long and got there as soon as they possibly could. Whatever the case, Czesch was interested in meeting whoever his neighbor was. That… and also getting out of the rain.

Two men were carrying a sofa out of the truck. It was one of the last pieces of furniture inside the truck, so they must have been carrying them for a while.  One of them told the other to stop while taking out his ringing cellphone. The man suddenly went pale for a moment, started talking quickly and hung up the phone. He started talking faster than his mouth allowed him to, sending some contorted message to his companion. This companion apparently understood the situation and the first guy went off running through the rain, leaving the second guy wondering how he would move the sofa by himself.

That man sighed deeply as he moved back towards the truck, probably in his early 40s, unlucky that his hairline had receded back, leaving a balding spot up front that was quite noticeable. To make up for it, his well-kept beard showed that he was a person that understood the importance of self-hygiene. The Kid appreciated that the most, since he had been with way too many filthy beards during his time… Rob and Buri included.

Czesch had nothing better to do. He could watch the struggle of a single man trying to achieve something almost impossible by himself… or he could not be Nate and actually help the man out of self-interest

“Do you need any help?”

 He approached casually, as if he had just witnessed the events upon arrival. True, he had been standing there for a while, soaking through and enduring a biting cold that he was accustomed to.

“Huh? Oh, errr… yeah, maybe I could use some…”

He almost slurred those words, definitely weary of someone approaching from behind to provide aid. Czesch thought it best to explain himself.

“I saw your friend leave you with this… must have been a really important emergency to let you handle this all on your own.”

“He… He isn´t really my friend, but… yeah, his wife is giving birth.”

“Oh, Ok, that… actually sounds really important.”

“Yup, he said he´d come back and I kind of trust him. He has been working his hardest all morning, so I´ll give him this one… you actually don’t mind helping me?”

“Not at all, I actually live here myself”

Czesch grabbed the covered-up sofa from one side, coming out of the rain and into the apartment building with his new neighbour on the other.

“You live here? Wow, what a coincidence!! Which floor?”

“I´m at 4th C, just moved in yesterday.”

“4th A! We are actually right next to each other!! Wow, what a nice surprise this is! I´m Terry, nice to meet you.”

“Czesch, likewise”

“Czesch? Czesch… Did I pronounce it right?”

“There is a “ch” in the end pronounced almost like a “k”… in German, it would be an “s”, but my parents decided to change it up… just call me “Chess” if you find that annoying, it´s what I tell everyone.”

He didn’t really. He was extremely picky about people pronouncing his name, yet he didn’t admit it to anyone in case they found it a new way to pick on him.

“Ah, not at all! I find names like that really exciting for some reason! Always like meeting people from…”

“The Czech Rep- I mean, Czechia now… but I come from British parents.”

“Oh, so you have double nationality? That must be really exciting!”

“You could say so…”

Actually… He had no nationality. He had a fake English one, but his two previous ones had been taken, one by the death of a country, the other by the death of his family name. Travaly was just a made-up family name, since his original one had… certain repercussions in the UK.

“So, you are living here with your parents, Czesch? Did you move in from your homeland?”

“Uh, no, I actually live alone.”

“My, you are really brave, venturing out to the adult world like this!... and you are also beefed up, I feel like I´m lifting a paperweight with you here.”

“Really? I thought the sofa was heavier… Guess I was wrong.”

He began measuring the weight of the sofa by applying less force, surprising Terry and almost making him trip. He quickly responded by applying strength again, letting his neighbour regain his footing. After a quick nervous laugh, Czesch went back to his interrogatory.

“So, Terry, what made you move here? If you don´t mind me asking.”

“I guess you could say it was business. The company I´m part of opened up a new shop in town, and I´m the designated manager. My wife and daughter both wanted to change up houses, so I got this place ready for all of us. She insisted to move out from our hometown to a place further South, so she got her wish in the end!”

“Oh, so you aren´t actually from Harville?”

“Not really, I moved in from York about 2 years ago, actually worked there until I inherited a house from my father´s side and… well, I ended up here!”

“And what does your shop sell?”

“Nothing for teenagers, I can tell you that much!”

“Well that´s- Wait… how old do you think I am?”

“I´d guess about 16 or 17.”

“Wow , you… guessed correctly. Nice one, it´s refreshing to hear someone getting it right!”

“Thanks! I´m actually quite good at guessing people´s ages. A gift of mine, you could say.”

“That´s a really odd gift to have.”

“We all have our own, don´t we?”

“Yup… we all do…”

They finally arrived at the 4th floor through the stairs. Apparently, his family was already inside their apartment, putting everything together. They squeezed the sofa through the door and into the flat, which had a similar disposition to Czesch´s, without the Blue Sparrow tech. Terry´s wife was laying books on a table, apparently organizing them in a proper order, when they both entered the living room.

“Honey, here´s the sofa!”

“Ok, one of the heavies down, a- wait, who is this lad? Where is William?”

“His wife was giving birth, so I told him to leave for the hospital.”

“And you convinced this boy to help you out? Terr, I´ve told you a million times not to bother people with work like this, you are not doing anyone any favors!... I´m really sorry you had to help my husband, I-.”

“It´s OK, Miss! I… actually wanted to help myself! I saw your husband was going to have some trouble moving everything, so I decided to lend in a hand.”

He began scratching the back of his neck, unsure as if he should refer to her like that. It was easier with Vivi or Karen, where the extent of his interactions were “Ma´am” and “K”.

“Miss? Hehe, my, haven´t we got here a sporting gentleman? Honey, mind presenting me this knight in shining armor?”

The comment struck Czesch in an positive way. He had always been a fan of middle age knights from the books he read as a kid.

“Well, this is Czesch, our neighbor from 4thC. Czesch, this is my wife, Julia.”

“A pleasure to meet you.”

He stretched out his hand and she quickly grabbed and shaked it enthusiastically. Out of that simple exchange, he could guess that she was the one running things in that particular family, her unbridled long red hair and ragged eyes filled with energy and passion.

“Likewise! I never thought we´d meet you so soon! And I would have never dreamt you´d come help out of the blue.”

“Yeah… a bit sorry about the state I´m in, though… came back from a morning jog.”

They both looked at him with concern in their faces.

“A morning jog?”

“On a Sunday? What time did you start?”

“Err… from 6 until an hour ago? I wanted to get a better look of the town, so I went for a run.”

The couple started laughing. Czesch didn´t understand what was there to laugh about. He didn´t find anything weird with running at that time of day… maybe it was the fact that he had done so in such a supposedly dangerous place?

“Oh… oh, sorry… It´s just… oh, haha…”

“We´ve actually never met someone as committed as you… It´s… quite refreshing.”

“Oh… OK.”

“Well, you must be thirsty then! Mind if I pour you a glass of lemonade? We have some leftover from the trip.”

“Yes, please… that would be… just great.”

Out from a corner Czesch heard a door opening. When looking at that direction, he came across a girl, probably his age. Her hair was a mess of reddish locks, and it looked like she hadn´t had proper sleep for a long while. Usually, from Czesch limited experience with women, seeing them like that was like being caught inside the house of a Russian commissar late at night… a death sentence, as Nate explained to him once. The girl, however, simply yawned and went over to the kitchen, ignoring his presence completely… probably for the better.

“Where do you think you are going, Missy?”

It was her mother, calling her over. The defying tone in her voice reminded him of Vivi.

“Getting a glass of water, nothing else.”

Her throat seemed quite parched, so she went ahead and gulped a full glass of the stuff.

“We have a guest, you know. What did we tell you about how to act when guests are around?”

“Social etiquette? Pass.”

“Urrgghh… Sorry about her, Czesch, our daughter can be a little… cold at times.”

“It´s alright. I´ve dealt with far, far worse friends than her. Your daughter is an angel compared to some people I knew.”

The Czech Civil War had taught him a lot about problem children, that was a certainty in his mind.

“Hey, Dad! Have you picked my PC yet?”

“No, it´s still at the lorry!... God, I forgot about it. Picked up the rest of her things too…”

That presented an opportunity too good to pass. Czesch jumped to the occasion, mostly so that he could get closer to the family and get some alone time to gather his thoughts.

“Want me to go get it? It´ll take half a minute.”

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Yeah, I don´t mind.”

“Thanks a lot, Czesch… it is a box with red stripes, you can´t miss it.”

“Alright!”

As Czesch went down the stairs, he started compiling in his head what info he had on that family. Terry, the husband, a salesman from Yorkshire, a bit naïve at times, but a good hearted man nonetheless. Julia, the wife… little intel on her, but she looked like she worked as a housewife and had the same aura of power people like Mary or Vivi had. The daughter… he didn´t have a name yet, but he knew so far that she was a bit on the rude side of things… and it seemed that the PC was of importance to her. Maybe he´d get some points delivering it to her.

When he reached the street, however, the image he expected was a little different. 3 men with hoodies on were trying to jack the truck from the back with a crowbar, being unsuccessful at that. From a town considered to be lawless and filled with insidious criminals, it surprised him greatly that amateurs like those were still alive… more so that no one was jumping to the occasion to show them how it was properly done.

Another person would have called for help. A more sensible one, the police. A smart one would have waited for an opportunity to strike unannounced. But Czesch had not the time nor the patience to be smart in this situation. It was still raining and he didn’t feel like either waiting or fighting.

“Hey!! What the fuck do you think you are doing? Step away from the truck!”

The 3 men, turned around, fear filling their hearts… until they saw it was just a boy in a jumpsuit shouting the usual lines of a fool about to get beaten.

“Wha? You tellin us wha ta do, boy? Ye some kinda… vigilante type-o-business?”

“I´m telling you, you don´t want to do something you might regret right now. Just leave it.”

“Ray! He tellin us ta leave it! Whaddaya say?”

“No focking mouse is tellen me what the fock to do!”

The second man pulled out a knife, while the first one handled the crowbar with his right hand. The 3rd one simply stayed behind the two, cheering them as they were about to take on a lonely, defenseless bystander. A bystander who sighed with all of his strength.

“They are actually going through with this… Urgghh, I can´t believe this shit is happening…”

The first one went for a stabbing motion, seeing that Czesch wasn´t budging back. Czesch quickly turned his assailant´s hand around, breaking the joints connecting it to the arm and causing quite a deal of pain. The crowbar man, seeing something was up, went with a downward strike, a slow and sluggish swing that Czesch evaded, immediately hitting the man´s right shoulder with a powerful kick.

One man screaming from a broken hand, the other from a dislocated shoulder, and the 3rd one running away as fast as possible. Czesch had seen that result coming from a mile away, and was still disappointed that they didn’t have more fight in them. It was probably the rain, forcing them to use their remaining functioning brain cells to enact survival.

“You better follow that friend of yours. Seems he is smart enough to know that staying here will get all of you into more trouble.”

The 2, stricken by pain, moved on the trail of the 3rd one. Czesch hated doing that, but some people can only learn in the basis of pain. It had been a good thing he had given up on the idea of taking the gun out, since that could have spawned an entire new problem of its own. The part of town was prone to violence, but shooting clearly wouldn’t make matters better.

Czesch opened the lock of the truck´s back, noticing there were but a few boxes left to move up. He could probably move 2 or 3 of them without much issue, but he knew that the contents inside the PC were extremely fragile… and that girl looked like the kind that would cut his balls and throw them on a balcony if annoyed. And Czesch was still attached to his nutsack.

The box was covered in opaque wrap-up, but Czesch had the feeling that the material inside was top notch. Of course, it was nothing like what the analists and hackers had at the Central HQ. Some of those people had the power to bring down entire countries with just a few clicks on a computer. It was a really good thing that they were on a payroll and were happy with their weekly-dose of donuts, jelly filled after a proper assignment.

Czesch went back upstairs with the box on top, making sure his soaked jumper didn’t get the components wet. Terry was still moving the sofa and Julia was in the bathroom doing some final touches. They told him to give it to her directly, that she would be OK with it. He somehow felt like he was being ordered to charge into Fallujah with a half-empty M16 and with a huge sign in red paint on his back. Still, no harm could come from doing so, right?

He knocked twice on the girl´s door after removing his soaked clothes. A “Do Not Disturb” sign was already hanging on the door. Impressive, given they had just moved, that she would choose to put that up first thing.

“What do you want now?”

“Got your computer here. Thought you might want it.”

She opened the door, revealing her still scruffy face and expression. She wasn´t exactly pissed, she might have been simply tired. She grabbed the box and forced an unnerving smile.

“Well, thank you. Now sod off… pretty please!”

Closing the door on his face was… just as he had expected. Maybe he could-

“Honey!! Let him help you set it up!”

Julia´s intervention was definitely not needed, but it got the girl to open the door anyway.

“Mom! I don´t need help with it!!”

“Just let Czesch give you a hand!! He´s our neighbour, don´t tell him off just like that!!”

“Urgghhhh… come on in… touch anything else and you won´t leave alive.”

“Got it”

The room already looked like a mess and the family had only been there for hours. Suitcases flung open, wardrobe filled to the brim with clothes she would probably never wear, some plushies… a typical girls room… with an M4 on a rack on the wall? A paintball M4, of the sort they used for training drills,  but still… That was the last thing he was personally expecting in a girls room. Then again, he didn´t know that many women and most of their lives revolved around weapons one way or another. Maybe Rob and Nate were wrong?

“Don´t say a word or you are walking off without a tongue.”

“You are repeating yourself… I wasn’t going to say a thing.”

“Oh, sure, you were going to make some remark like “What is a girl doing with a gun?” or “Is she going to shoot up a school?” or something along those lines. You wouldn’t be the first.”

“Didn´t even cross my mind”

“Right… you are just saying that because you are patronizing me.”

“I might be… then again, having a modified M4 on a rack definitely shows quite the love for it… wouldn´t want to catch you in a bad mood.”

“Oh, piss off and hand me the red cable”

Getting all the cables and parts together was simple enough. Czesch had worked around computers for a while. Hell, he even knew some basic programming. A necessary skill when sneaking in a building to steal valuable information, a task he had done a few times before.

“How did you get your hands on a holographic optic?”

“What was that?”

“Those don´t come off cheap, you know. I mean, they got cheaper lately, but the best ones still range around the thousands.”

“Oh? You into Paintball?”

“You could say I have an interest in firearms… and Paintball might have to do with it.”

“And you don’t find it weird that a girl is into it?”

“I´ve seen a lot of weird stuff, yours doesn´t even number in the top 10.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

He simply shrugged, somehow getting a chuckle out of her. Maybe he was better than he thought.

“Wouldn´t know. That´s entirely up to you.”

“Then what are you doing in here if not humor me?”

“I´m being a friendly neighbor, that´s all.”

She turned around toward him for a moment, shooting a cold glance at him. She then immediately went back to fixing some sort of problem.

“A friendly neighbor that entered into my room, uninvited.”

“That was your parents, not me.”

“You could have refused, most people would.”

“Maybe I wanted to know you better… you know, being in town and not knowing a soul is quite hard.”

Her sigh was audible enough to express her disappointment.

“Then you must be scared shitless already.”

“Not necessarily, no.”

“You just met a girl into videogames and Paintball and you are not even slightly put off?”

“Surprised? Yes. Put off? Not in the slightest, why would I be? That´s quite unique, isn’t it?”

The unsure manner in which he had stated that got the girl to burst out laughing.

“Well, that makes you an oddball. And I´m surprisingly OK with you being one… will you show me your collection one of these days?”

“Sure thing… I definitely will…”

He was less than thrilled by that prospect. Now Czesch would have to ask Karen to find him some Paintball guns. Explaining that one would definitely get a laugh or two to the team as well.

“You know… we started at the wrong foot. You seem like a nice enough guy, and it´s a good change of pace to finally have someone to talk with about this. Back where we lived, every boy had their heads up in football´s ass and, well… you know how girls are…”

“Having met you and from experience, I think I don’t have a fucking clue.”

“Well, way to prove my point of you being an oddball… alright, try switching it on.”

The PC started up without a hitch, all of its lights flickering like a bunch of laser pointers going haywire. The girl did a slight fistbump in the air, as if to celebrate that small victory. Czesch cleared his throat and went ahead to make the uncomfortable question.

“Soo… I´m guessing you have a name, but I haven´t the slightest about it.”

“That was the most complicated way of asking one´s name Ive heard in a long time… Do you do this often?”

“It´s… yeah, I´m not good with introductions like these. Sometimes I don´t screw up too bad, only when I´m not freezing.”

“I couldn’t tell… the name´s Jennifer, by the way. People call me Jenny to shorten it up., not wanting to waste saliva on it.”

“Wow, I never would have thought…”

“Oh, piss off!! Outta my room, now!!”

And that is how Czesch got kicked out of that weird girl´s room. Sarcasm and snark opened as many doors as it closed them. It made him wonder how the hell Nate had managed to score with a girl. Probably self-restraint of some sort… on either of their parts.

Czesch heard a knock on the main door.  Jenny´s parents had their hands full at that moment, and Jenny… well, Czesch thought he´d better be the one to answer. Of course, he guessed already who the man at the door was …

“Hi, I´m Jeff! I´m your- Goodness me, Czesch!! Am I high or did you decide to change houses all of a sudden?”

“I sincerely hope it´s not the former… the family had some trouble bringing furniture up, so I decided to lend a hand.”

“Goodness me, aren´t you just loveable!! If I wasn´t already with my darling, I would have had second thoughts for you!”

“I… uuuhhhhh… thanks?”

Julia came to the door after finishing whatever she was doing, her face lighting up at the sight of another neighbour.

“Oh, Hi there! I´m Julia, nice to meet you.”

“Morning! I´m Jeff, likewise… I´m guessing you have already met Czesch.”

“Oh, my idiot husband convinced him to help us out… still, it was nice of him to lend a hand… even so, I still can´t believe he would do something so stupid.”

“Hey!! I heard that one!!”

“Love you too, honey!!”

“Oh my, I love households with such movement!! I was thinking of inviting you all for some tea at 5 if time allows. Czesch already said he would, so I hoped you could-“

“Of course we will go!! It would be wrong just to turn down an invitation after this hospitality… we will probably have finished by lunch… if some people decide to help out!!”

“Later,  Mom!”

“Wonderful!! And with this, I bid you… adieu.”

The way the conversation went had been… unnerving. Czesch wasn’t used to that sort of dynamic and felt out of his element. Seeing that Jeff had already gone back to his apartment, he took it as a sign to retreat early.

“I´ll be leaving as well if you don´t mind… got a few calls I have to make.”

“No worries, Czesch… thanks for the help.”

“No problem. Just call me over if you need anything, OK?”

“Don´t worry, you have already done enough. Just go!”

She pushed him out of the door while giggling to herself, reminding him more and more of Vivi´s more annoying side. Czesch did have some calls to make, not important ones, but still necessary. First off was Karen and… well, the conversation was more atypical than what the Kid had initially prepared himself for.

“Aaaaahhhhhhhh!!! Czeschky, are you OK!?! Did anything happen?!? You never call so soon!! That must mean… Hola…errr… Yio no conocer telephone guy…”

“K, it´s me, can you quit your panicking for a bit?”

“Sorry, but you did catch me off guard. It has only been a day and you are already calling… aahh, you do care for-“

She was playing the playful girlfriend persona. That only served to get Czesch riled up, and it worked every time.

“Nevermind that!!... Look, K, I need a favor.”

“Another one? My, you are one to ask for a ton of favors. What is it this time?”

“I need you to prepare me a new batch of weapons-“

Her scream forced him to get his ear away from his phone, by quite a considerable distance.

“Czeschky!! I am SHOCKED that you already ruined my babies! I thought you were a careful person… How bad is the damage? Is it salvageable!?”

“I need Paintball replicas, K! Paintball ones!”

The silence during that moment was golden for so many reasons that the Kid couldn’t even list them all.

“Huh? Paintball? What for?”

“A thing that popped up… and I don’t want to go around showing real guns to people at home, I have an identity to cover here as a secondary task…”

“Hmmm… tell you what… lets make a deal…”

He felt a shiver run down his spine the moment the word “deal” came out of her lips.

“Oh boy, this is bound to be good… name your terms.”

“I´ll get you the weapons as soon as I can, but… if you don’t want Mary finding out… and we both know you don’t want her knowing you got that many real guns at home either…I need you to do something for me.”

“… When you say it like that, you do know you are making it sound horrifying, right?”

“Oh, just a small favor, nothing too risky… I want a picture of you in full Paintball gear.”

And so the ball was thrown… missing completely the intended mark.

“I´m sorry, what?”

“Just a picture.”

“You want to have a picture of me… in Paintball gear? A self portrait?”

“Yeah, basically.”

He spent half a minute debating the implications of that request. Then he saw how futile it was to think on a normal scale about her and went ahead with questioning.

“… Why would you-?”

“Oh, just do it! It´ll be fun!”

“Hold on, I´m not striking the deal until I know what sort of shady business you have planned for-!!“

“Oh, that´s too bad, guess I´ll have to tell Mary you are doing-“

“Ok, Ok, Deal! Deal!... I´ll send it your way when the gear arrives.”

“Yay!!! Love you, Czeschky!! See you soon!”

“Stand you, K… Talk to you later.”

That had been… harder than what Czesch had imagined. Still, that was one less thing down on the list. A call to Peru revealed that the route had worked effectively, although he knew that a rainstorm was bound to come soon enough. He had sent a request for to the government to clear that route, who would end up hiring a contractor to do the job. He just hoped they would react soon enough, since that route was giving out much needed help to the southern portion of the country.

The Zimbabwean case had taken a turn for the best. Using that report Czesch had filed, the S.A.S had managed to capture the warlord´s brother during a raid. It wasn’t the breakthrough they had been waiting for, but Czesch reassured them that steps like that were vital to getting him. Now they had leverage and could draw him out into the open in a well planned operation.

After that… Czesch wasn’t sure on what to do. He felt a little peckish, so he decided to start making something for lunch. He wasn’t an expert cook or anything, but he had learned a couple of easy to make dishes in his off-time. He probably would try and get some rest afterwards.

5 P.M came, slower than Czesch had thought it would. He came in last, apologizing for being late after a quick nap gone long. The rest just shrugged it off and told him not to worry. The gay couple, Jeff and Hugh, had prepared some mojitos and soft drinks along with some snacks, jokingly asking if Czesch wanted the former rather than the latter. Czesch just settled for the soft drink. He wasn´t too fond of drinking for the sake of it, and only did so to cool off after a stressful day or when singing.

They talked about a lot of topics: Hobbies, work, that sort of thing. Czesch did his best to tell as little as possible. And then, of course, the subject came on its own:

“So, Czesch, it was really brave of your parents to let you live by yourself!! I mean, I´ll still be tearing my hairs out thinking about it when my little darling turns 18!”

“Mom! Told you to stop calling me that, I´m not 10 anymore!”

“So, yeah, Czesch, they must have put a lot of trust in you.”

“Well… you could say that… they… well, this is awkward. I don’t want to ruin the mood like this…”

“Oohh, you can tell us! There´s no need to be embarrassed about it! Hughie here works solving cases with problem children and parents, you have nothing to worry about!”

“A-Are you sure?”

“Yes, we would like to hear about your situation, if you don’t mind.”

“OK…Thing is, they…really don’t care anymore.”

An uncomfortable silence fell in the room. Czesch could lie about a lot of things, but… his heritage… was something he was lying enough about. That damned Travaly at the end of his name was nothing more than a mask to keep him safe within the British Isles.

“You mean… they kicked you out?”

“Jenny!!”

“What? You were all thinking that.”

“Maybe I… phrased it wrong… it´s not that they don’t care… it’s that they can´t for… for natural reasons, that is.”

“… Oh dear… sorry, Czesch, we didn´t know…”

“It´s alright! It happened a long time ago, so I´m fine with it now! You should have seen me the weeks after, I was a total wreck! But everything´s good now.”

“It must have been… hellish.”

“Well, I had other things to worry about.”

“Like what?”

“The war”

Czesch immediately regretted opening his mouth, biting his tongue in response. Why had he said that? He wasn’t speaking to Vivi and the others, he was talking with his neighbors over some drinks. He had already killed the mood enough, and now he was double-tapping it to make sure it wouldn’t rise again as if it were a terrorist.

“You´ve… actually been in a war?”

There was no way out of that one other than pulling through, so he swallowed some saliva and proceeded.

“Well… yes, I have… The Czech Civil one of a few years back.”

“What was it like?”

That was the first time Jenny had showed genuine interest in a person within that room. Her eyes lit up the moment the Kid confirmed his situation.

“Jenny!!!”

“I´m sorry, I´m sorry! I just thought-“

“Julia, it´s OK. I usually don’t want to bring this stuff up, but… hell, everyone tells me the more I share it, the better I´ll feel. I´m already feeling quite good, so if you don´t want to know about it, I´ll understand, but there´s nothing for me to lose in you knowing if you are curious.”

“You poor thing… going on ahead, being brave in a dark world…”

Hugh, even with a fever, was still participating in the conversation, his puppy eyes meeting with those of his beloved. Maybe it was the fact he had been desynthisized, but Czesch couldn’t help but not understand the mechanic between those two.

“Go ahead and tell us. I promise I won’t cry or anything.”

“I´ll hold your hand the whole way, sweetie!”

“Oh, don’t worry, it isn’t a crying matter. It´s just… what happened, that is all.”

Czesch took a deep breath. He had to change the parts where he felt some mending was needed (that mending being the parts of him basically acting as a child partisan). He released it and started his tale.

“I was around 8 when it all started. A week passed and it felt like the world wasn’t moving, that only the sounds of the guns were getting closer and closer. I had a high fever, so I couldn’t be moved around in fear that I would get worse. That´s… how I ended up alone. Luckily, I recovered and met up with some survivors and we managed to stay alive day after day. Saw some good and bad people losing their lives every once in a while, since it was the norm. Food was scarce, so we sometimes had to… be “imaginative”… you probably don’t want me going into details. So that is how it went… all 3 and a half years of it.”

“You… spent 3 years living like that?”

“Definitely felt like a couple more, but, then again, I cant really complain. Getting out of our area was difficult, since it was near a conflict zone between the loyalists and revolutionaries. Only when it was about to end, we made a rush towards an opening when the frontlines began to crumble...”

Czesch grasped his fingers tightly. He knew what part was coming. It would be hard to change it, since he was trying his best to forget it… he pushed the drowning sensation back to the dark depths of his mind.

“In that last push, I saw the world around me emptying itself. The people I had survived with all those years… gone. Some in a matter of seconds, others never really knowing if they made it through… really thought it would be the end of me… I had nothing left.”

“God… so dreadful…”

“But here I am, telling the story… and I have to thank a woman with a heart bigger than her chest for taking me out of there. Afterwards, I studied and worked with her here in England and… well, got properly emancipated earlier this year so I decided to start living on my own.”

Another sepulchral silence. Everyone was thinking of what to say to him. Words of kindness, of empathy, something to make him feel better. And Czesch had had enough of them for a lifetime.

“Well, the past is in the past!! I´m over it all already, so don´t you worry about me!! As Vivi puts it, “Sometimes in life, you have to be as stubborn as a wounded ox!”

“Meaning?”

“You have to push ahead no matter what! So,I propose a toast! To all of us!”

His sudden cheerful change turned the heavy ambiance upside down, happiness in the face of despair being a great motivator. All present lifted their cups to the air.

“To all of us!”

Everyone joined the toast. It was as if a cloud of mustard gas had passed through and Czesch had been able to get the gas masks in time. All of his neighbors were back to their talkative selves… all except one mulling Jenny, who kept glancing on his direction every few seconds. That curious spark in her eyes had transformed to regret.

“What´s up? Your parents don’t let you near the mojito?”

“Ummm… sorry about… what I asked earlier. I realize it was a bit-”

“Oh, right! I didn’t end up answering your question.”

“Err, you don’t need to if you-“

“To be completely honest… I wouldn’t want to go through it again… too much… lost, you know… then again, I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t happened in the first place. So, a positive buoy in a murky lake of negativity!”

She leaned back from her seat, the cringe being too great to help her remain still.

“Don´t… don´t use that one again… it was bad, real bad.”

“Yeah, when they come off right they are gems, I promise.”

“I hope you are right, because that one was atrocious.”

They kept on chatting until the sun set over the horizon, which was Czesch´s sign to leave the room. He had already caused enough mischief and, seeing how things were progressing, he needed the extra time to evaluate his situation.

“Well, it´s been a lot of fun but I actually need to get my things ready for tomorrow…that and have dinner.”

“Oh, don´t worry about that, Czesch! I´ll prepare something for you.”

“No need, Jeff. I need to get some more cooking practice, so I´ll sit down your offer for a while.”

“Oh, right… well, any time you want me or Hughie-poo to make you something, you tell me, alright? He´s not that good at it, burns everything he touches.”

“You don´t say that when I make the drinks, love.”

“Your food might not be edible, but your drinks are the best in the world! L-O-V-E Y-O-U”

“M-E T-O-O”

“Riiight… well, I´ll be off then. T-Thanks for inviting me over, I really appreciate it.”

“Ahh, no need to be so formal, Czesch! Anything you need, just pop over.”

“Same here! You need anything from me, Julia or my little girl, you just ask.”

“… T-Thanks… well, good night.”

Czesch didn’t really know how to react. Those people… were really kind. But, it was clear they had their problems… probably not Jeff and Hugh, they seemed to be well-off. But the family would need help like that day. And Czesch wouldn’t fail to heed their call if it came to it.

Just when he was about to open the door…

“Czesch! Wait! I forgot to ask you something!”

Jenny went ahead and stopped him from leaving with a positive outlook on the situation.

“What is it? Something else about the war?”

“Not that, dum-dum!! I forgot to ask what school you are going to.”

“Oh… Saint Vincent´s… you?”

“Rosemary… well, guess we can´t be that lucky.”

“Yeah, would have been cool to go in with someone I know.”

“Yup… so… you nervous?”

“Huh? About what?”

“About starting over. Getting to know new people, making new friends, that sort of thing.  It´s hard enough already, but we both have to deal with this being the 2nd week of class.”

“Oh, yeah… to be honest, I didn’t give it much thought.”

“You have to be kidding… you can be quite careless sometimes, you know that?”

“Hey, I´ve got a lot of stuff on my mind! Give me a break.”

“Whatever… I wanted to ask you something else…”

She was about to speak her mind, but her words came short to a whimper.

“… What is it? I actually don’t have all night.”

“W-well, I… god, why am I getting embarrassed all of a sudden?...”

She turned a bit red and sighed deeply. Czesch had no clue what the deal with this girl was, but it would definitely be something more normal than Karen´s “request”.

“Ok… would you m-mind… giving me your… cell? I-Is that alright?”

“… My phone? What do you want my phone for? Is yours broken?”

“Arggh, stop acting dumb!! Your number! It´s not like I´m asking for the keys to your house!”

“Oh, right, my number… my number…”

Czesch had only the most basic understanding of civil interaction thanks to his colleagues. But he knew that asking someone else for their phone number was quite a deep action with fairly important consequences. In some situations, such an act can be used to start a romantic relationship…

“… Are you hitting on me?”

“Huh? What!? W-What made you think that!?”

“Well, you are asking all of a-“

“I wouldn´t- Arrghh, you are making this harder than it already is!!”

“I… actually don’t know what vibes I´m getting right now.”

“God, I only wanted to have yours in case either of us gets into trouble or we get lonely and need someone to talk to!!”

“Oh…”

“Yeah… and I think you know the kind of town we are in. There´s no guarantee we´ll grow to it any time soon.”

They both shared a moment of awkward silence. Czesch sighed heavily, conceding to her request. Thank god it was just that and not a hidden agenda of vengeance.

“Alright fine, here´s mine.”

“Ok, got it… a-and forget about the hitting thing!”

“Huh?”

“You are a cool guy, b-but you aren´t my type, OK? We are just neighbors who help each other out, that´s all! D-Don´t go asking what´s my type, cause I won´t say a damn word!”

Seeing her acting so nervous, he thought of no better act to calm her down than to shrug.

“Yeah, I´m cool with that.”

“Glad that´s- wait, are you sure?”

“Never was the romantic type. Besides, if I ever wanted to, I wouldn´t start with a girl that would want to kick my ass having just met me.”

“Hey! I´m not like that… all of the time! I couldn’t sleep well last night, that´s all!”

“Sure, sure… well, see you around, Cranky Jenny.”

“Later… can I call you C? Your name is a bit weird to pronounce all the time.”

“Suit yourself. I have nicknames galore, but everyone ends up calling me that more often than not.”

“Good to know… good night, C!”

Czesch went back to his apartment and started making something edible, with a flavor that would make Rob, the one who taught him cooking, spit the whole contents into a dustbin. While half-hazardly eating his first meal in town, he thought of how lucky he was. He was making dinner in an apartment inside a relatively peaceful city with a bunch of extremely friendly neighbors. He was going to move to a school where he would get some education hammered into him and meet new people.

He wasn’t back there. He always dreamt of being back there, reliving those infernal moments time and time again… seeing his kin die… suffering through the curses… that last month and a half… It all had been worth it if it meant he could keep the life he was having.

Czesch went to bed with the feeling that maybe his 30 minute to 1 hour naps could transform into 3 hour naps. That wasn´t much to ask, but he knew that his sleeping schedule couldn’t fit with his class one. It was already hard enough in the company, but having to deal with both lives would definitely drain him.

He went back to the nightmare realm, where he watched everything unfold again…

Another wasteland, another moment of death and failure. This time, he wasn´t alone, since Sabrina had decided to join the party early. Sabrina… leader of his old group and fiercest fighter he knew to date. Vivi could be quite frightening sometimes but, in his mind, Sabi held that top spot. She appeared whenever she pleased, always uninvited, sometimes just to piss him off, others to deliver some sort of news. She stood right next to Czesch, looking around her like a child searching for something fun to do.

“What a beautiful day, don´t you think?”

“…”

“Silent treatment again? I was just trying to be nice, you know!”

“… No point in talking with the dead.”

It had been an instinctive response, yet one he didn’t want to speak out loud. He started walking through the dream, with Sabi following behind.

“Who knows? Maybe you do want to talk with me. Like you are doing right now.”

“… I just want to watch this play off and wake up afterwards, like always.”

“Suit yourself, Im just here to help on the commentary.”

A mild breeze fell through that barren waste. A mixture of broken concrete, steel, ceramic and human life, all strewn about to make the scenery look less empty. Gunshots could be heard, as well as mortars, falling closer and closer. If there was one thing those damn nightmares were good at was at giving him a perfect recreation of the conflict.

“Arrghh, I cant remember which one this was!! Can you give me a spoiler or something?”

“Oh, right, you weren´t here for this one… give it a minute, you´ll see for yourself.”

A human figure appeared under a massive hail of bullets, mortar shells and an assortment of other types of ammunition. He was running at breakneck speed, the bullets whizzing past him like they weren’t even aimed at him.

“Ooohhh, I see, I see!! Rabi, the Forlorn Lightning of Brno!! Didn´t you dream of him a few months ago?”

“Yeah, and remember we settled for just “Lightning”. He hated that long ass name you gave him.”

“Shit, I forgot how entertaining it was to watch him run!! I mean, look at the face he is making! Makes you wanna laugh.”

“That´s the face of his muscles about to explode… I don’t think he´s enjoying it as much as you are.”

That was Rabi´s “curse”… He wasn´t exactly fast per se, it was simply a case of his body redirecting all incoming objects around him through motion. That ability had caused problems in the past, but it was ideal when taking excessive fire. The downside was that after its usage, Rabi needed an absurd amount of painkillers to even move his legs again. That was the deal with their curses: A great power, quickly followed by an even greater pain.

“This is the part where he dies, isn´t it?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, oh, lemme guess! Lemme guess how he goes!”

She was bouncing up and down, like a kid watching a spectacle with a quiz in the middle.

“Guess? You already know how he´s going to “cease to be”.”

“Ahhh, you are no fun! I´m betting on the blast of one of the explosions sending him onto some broken concrete, the steel bars crushing through his little body, his organs spilling out their contents… You know, family friendly stuff!”

“Wrong.”

“Then, how about…an epic last stand where he takes on the entirety of their force, only to be obliterated by their superior manpower?”

“Wrong again.”

“Alright, know-it-all, how does he become an ex-Rabi?”

Rabi died the same way he had died all those times before… he slipped and broke his neck. Simple and painless like that, with only him to bare witness to the cruel joke.

“Ok… that was anticlimactic. What a shitty way to go.”

The amount of irony in there was too big to not give a proper response.

“Yours wasn´t much better.”

“At least I went away in a much cooler way than Linda.”

“… Jesus, don´t remind me of that one right now.”

“I mean, just admit it, that whole ordeal was bonkers.”

“Compared to you? That was normal.”

“You saying I´m bonkers?”

“Yes, you were completely bonkers”

“And you love that about me.”

“Yes, I… liked that about you.”

Another silence. Sabrina danced around for a little bit amidst the bodies, singing a tune for herself. It was the tune of one of Czesch´s songs and he hated when people did that, but only now had he realized that he had managed to keep the closest thing resembling a conversation… with her of all people!! That single day in Harville was really screwing him up in a bad way if he was desperate enough to be talking to the spirit of a dead companion while in a dream.

“Tell me, Czesch… why are you so intent on watching this stuff over and over?”

And back to the serious questions. That was Sabi´s character trait, being random for the sake of it.

“I think you already know the answer.”

“I mean, I´ve got an answer from you, but I don´t think it was that definitive.”

“… I´m the last one that knows about all of us… If I decide to forget about it, then… it´s almost like erasing it.”

“And you don´t want to erase it? Even if its bad?”

“Yeah… even if it kills me.”

She started clapping quite effusively, making the Kid recoil back a few steps.

“Czesch, you were a complete wimp, but, damn, you had balls sometimes! You still have them! I´m glad you have them!”

“Well, thanks… something else you wanna ask? It´s the only reason you come anyways, to ask questions or give me cryptic advice only you understand.”

She cackled for a few seconds while placing her hands around her hips.

“Yeah… Are you completely sure you are up for being a “normal citizen”? I mean, you aren´t exactly anti-social, you proved that with that weird bunch of people just now… but, out there, how well do you think you´ll do? How much time will pass until you have to tell them about yourself? How long till they find out who you really are?”

He pondered for a few seconds. Then, seeing that any answer would satisfy her, he merely shrugged and went with:

“… I guess I´ll cross that bridge when I get to it!”

“Man, the respect I have for you can´t be measured in words!! All that optimism in you, after all this time! Gimme a hug!”

Of course, he´d give her a hug… then she´d disappear. Then they the shadows would engulf and tear him to pieces. Then the Old Crone would laugh.

Then, he would wake up, check the clock, and go back to sleep.

Morning came, but Czesch was already up. A nervousness that hadn’t appeared in months had suddenly decided to make an entrance, and it had thrown most of his confidence down to the bin. Thoughts of cataclysmic proportions crossed his mind as he double-checked that he had everything with him. It was way too early to leave, way too early… maybe a walk would calm him down.

Czesch left his apartment with weary thoughts. He had to calm down… remain in control. In a sense, he was glad this was happening 2 hours prior. It happened sometimes, a breakdown of all the accumulated tension and anger in the spur of the moment, usually before operations or during a briefing. He usually kept it to himself, but people could immediately notice that something was up with him. If he was having it now, then he would have no problem when going to school.

He sat on a park next to the apartment building, grabbing a can of coke in a nearby machine. He was really fond of anything with caffeine, one of his greatest allies in the battle against the lack of sleep. He sipped it down as he observed how empty the place felt, apart from a few vagrants and other individuals of questionable nature.

After a while, he wasn’t feeling a thing. All those nerves, all the rage and concentrated anger inside of him… gone. Only the cold morning summer breeze and the bittersweet taste of the coke so early in the day. It was a day like any other, a bit slower than usual, but it sure promised to be a hectic one.

He started making his way towards St Vincent, taking a normal walking speed. He was bound to arrive earlier by 5 minutes or so, so he was taking his time while heading there. He had his backstory set, certain lines to use in case he got stuck during presentation and, above all, a smile to keep his spirits up. All according to plan, or so he thought… plans had a tendency of crashing down the moment he started executing them.

He was busy going through everything a second time on his head when, suddenly, a girl appeared on his left on a crossing, almost bumping into him. She was sprinting, fast, as if running away from the devil himself. She went behind him and hid inside a shop Czesch had just passed through. He stopped for a second, wondering what had caused her to start running out of nowhere, checking his belongings in case of pickpocketing.

Coming from her direction, a bunch of men in suits, 3 in total, came down sprinting. They stopped at the intersection, looking around for their prey.

“Oh, shite!! Shit, shit, shit!! This is the 3rd time she pulls this off on us… the 3rd!”

“Yeah, her damn old man giving her this much freedom… doesn’t he know it makes our job almost impossible!?”

“Come on, lads… less talking, more searching… Hey! You, kid!”

Czesch pointed at himself, jokingly of course, since he was the only one his age walking around so early in the morning.

“Have you seen a girl sprinting over towards here? Blonde hair, cut to shoulder length, hard to miss.”

“A blond girl? What is her to you?”

“We are her protective detail. She keeps on running off on our asses every time we try to-“

“TD, you told him enough already… have you seen her or not?”

That word… “Protective Detail”… behind his smile, Czesch was hiding the gritting of his teeth. What kind of protective detail showed themselves like that, on suits, in a public street, together, with no suirveillance tracking her down on that day and age? What the hell was their problem? Did they want to be spotted? To get seen and-? He stopped that thought. He had been there before, so he eased himself. The Kid still had to give them an answer.

“I´m not sure if it’s the girl you are looking for… but I saw one running down this street, taking a left on that one over there.”

“Alright, thanks lad. Really appreciate the help… you heard him boys, let’s go!”

And off they went… all bystanders and onlookers watching them for what they were: A security team. Security teams are meant to work from within the people that walk the streets, unlike proper bodyguards. Every person is a potential harm to the client, meaning that you need to find a way to have eyes on the crowd at every given moment and also be at reach in case an emergency arises.  Things like GPS, Internet connections or phone signals were godsends when dealing with the protection or search of someone. And those 3 men were searching for her… on foot.

Czesch sighed as he thought about them. Not only were they probably having a hard time keeping up with her, but she was probably the kind of client that didn’t want protection in the first place. Some kind of witness protection program? No, they didn’t look like cops. Probably a private party  at work… definitely not Blue Sparrow. Their working standards were so important that a breach like that could cause several warnings and even a kick from the company.

He had almost reached the end of the street when the girl decided to get out of the store. She looked towards Czesch and shouted an audible “Hey!” that forced Czesch to look back. He couldn’t make her face at that distance, so neither could she. She shouted something else, along the lines of “Thanks for not ratting me out!” or something along those lines

 Czesch simply did a quick wave at her and went on his way.

15 minutes. He had arrived 15 minutes early to the school. He felt stupid, oh so stupid, for increasing the pace halfway. He was way too early by teenager standards, he couldn’t be caught so early. People would start making assumptions about him. He wasn´t an early bird by any means, he just had a bloody sleeping problem. Other students and teachers would get the wrong idea out of it.

Only thing to do was to go to the headmasters or to the teachers room or a faculty office or something on those lines… luckily,  he found the door to the teachers room on the first try, saving some time… that he could actually spare. Sometimes Czesch thought if destiny would always be playing tricks with him.

He knocked on the door twice, only to discover that just 2 teachers had made it so early in the morning. Czesch didn´t find that out of place. Teaching in a city like that one would give him depressive attitudes as well.

“A student so early? If it weren’t for the backpack, though… Jack, is he one of yours?”

“I´m not actually sure, haven´t seen this one... hey, you! Come on in, we don’t bite!”

“Thank you, sir!”

He said that out of instinct. He bit his tongue for that one.

“No need to be so formal, only call me sir while in class time and if you feel like it! I´m not running an army here or anything! So, who are you, kid?”

“I´m… Czesch Travaly, transfer student.”

“Transfer student… Oi, Genna, did I have a transf coming in today?”

“Yes you did! I called you yesterday to remind you of that!”

“Oh, shit, I completely forgot… Real sorry about that one, Czesch, work piling up…”

“It´s alright… so, I´m guessing I´m in your class then.”

“Apparently so! Terrible first impression, right? It´s my first year as a tutor, so do cut me some slack for it.”

“Trust me, I´m not one for first impressions either… still have to adapt to time schedules…”

“Yeah, seeing a student so early makes you wonder if things are changing around here for the better… anyway, enough of that, do you have your weekly schedule on you?”

“I… I was told to ask for it here, since I´m supposed to present myself during homeroom.”

“Oh, right, right! I´ll print one for you right now!... You know, its kinda funny having a couple of you in my class.”

“A couple of what?”

“Czechs, of course!! Come on, you don’t need to be a fortune-teller to guess where you come from … unless it’s a trick name.”

“It isn’t… you are saying there are other Czech people here?”

“2 in your class, some others around the school as well. Some of the best people I´ve got, real hard workers. Im expecting you to be kind of the same.”

“If I can stay up long enough…”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing!”

They spent the remainder of the time talking about class divisions and other paperwork to file. Czesch was already quite adept at writing reports and signing documents, so it took them, yet again, shorter than anticipated. The bell finally rang and Czesch followed Jack to their classroom.

Room 2-C. That would be his classroom for 70% of his lessons. While he waited outside, he wondered if the class would have proper air conditioning and heating. After all, he was going to try and sleep off some of them. He wouldn’t want to catch a cold… not that he´d catch one or anything.

He waited outside for almost 5 minutes, calming himself down, repeating the words on the background file as if it was the Bible. He was, for the most part, serene, even though he had some sort of tension keeping him awake.

“Well, before I go any further I´d like to welcome a new transfer student. He´s a Brit, but he´s native from Czechia, so Jan and Lucie, do try to make him feel at home. The same goes for the rest of you lot. Without further ado, I´ll let him introduce himself to you…You can come in now!”

The biggest problem Czesch ever had with new people was the pronunciation of his name, particularly the fact that it sounded similar to “Chess”. His parents probably thought of the name in a hurry and pronounced it however they wanted to, non caring about talking principles or the sort. With those thoughts crossing his mind, Czesch went over to the blackboard and wrote his name. If he wanted to be as comfortable as humanly possible, he had start there.

He turned around. Around 20 to 25 people were sitting in rows, looking at him, scanning for anything that might tell them if the guy standing up was someone who´d fit in. Some of the girls in the back started whispering, some giggling. Czesch simply sighed and started.

“Alright, first off… who can pronounce this name right?”

“Uhhh… kid, sorry to interrupt, but you are supposed to-“

“That´s what I´m doing, sir… I want to see if they can get the basics.”

Some of them decided to give it a whirl, failing miserably, getting a few good laughs out of the class. That had been his plan all along, to get rid of the atmosphere of seclusion and get them to participate. But, at some point, someone was bound to get it right…

“Is it “Czesch”? With a “k” sound in the end?”

“That´s… correct, actually.”

The one who had answered correctly was a girl sitting way in the back. Blonde hair, cut to shoulder leng- The same girl he had helped not but an hour ago! She was in the same class as him? That was… a weird twist of fate.

“Well, with that over and done… I´m Czesch Travaly, nice to meet you all! I was born in the Czech Republic, but I have lived around Hereford for the past 4 years… so, don´t worry about me suddenly not speaking English or anything, cause I got that covered… what else, what else… Do you have any questions? I´m drawing a blank right now, so…”

“Yeah, uhhh… are you sure you are 16?”

One of the girls in the front said it, almost timidly. It seemed most of the class was curious about the answer.

“Last time I checked, it sure seemed like it!... why do you ask?”

“O-Ohhh, ummm… I-I… you know…”

Most of the class laughed at that comment. Sure, Czesch looked older for his age, but it wasn’t anything to blush about. It was true that most of his scars had healed, so he wasn’t horribly disfigured or anything. But the attitude of some of the girls was… worrying, to say the least.

“What do you like doing? I mean, hobbies and such.”

One of the boys in the middle asked this one, maybe trying to spot some innate ability for a sports club.

“You could say I´m a sucker for Paintball… I guess sometimes I´d be up for some football… honestly, not much more I can say.”

Some mumbling, followed by another question:

“You have a girlfriend?”

One of the girls was asking, probably to tease him a little. He was so used to Vivi´s and Karen´s teasing that he knew the best way to answer would be calmly.

“For the time being, none.”

Some of the girls squirmed in delight. It was true that he didn’t have a girlfriend… at least, in that particular sense. The closest thing to it was… he stopped that thought. It wasn’t the time nor the place.

“Do you work out?”

Another girl, probably checking out his arms. He wasn’t hadn’t the usual “gym” build one would see in cities, but he had to keep fit to stay on top of situations that would most likely get him killed if he wasn’t careful.

“Every day, actually. It does show, doesn’t it?

More glee and joy coming from the female section of the class. Come to think about it… he had looked around the class and… there were only 8 boys, counting him. So… he was in a classroom mostly filled with girsl. This was bound to cause trouble down the line, given his experience with women.

“Are you from Czechia or the Czech Republic?”

 Another girl. This one appeared to be one of the Czech people in the class. She had stood up when she said it, anger forming in her visage. She probably thought of him as a rich kid from the victorious side that finally got out of war-torn Czechia to study in the UK, and given that most Czech people out of the country came from the losing side…

“Lucie, come on. Don´t start off with-“

A boy stood up to her. Probably a friend of hers, trying to stop her from saying something she would regret. She stopped him short.

“Let him say it. I need to hear it.”

“… Czech Republic.”

“… Glad to have that straightened out.”

She sat down again, breathing deeply to calm herself.. No wonder she had asked that question. If a loyalist and a revolutionary were to go in the same class… there would probably be a massacre.

“Are you good at studying?”

The question was almost muffled by a mountain of “Come on!”´s. It was most likely that the people in there weren’t thrilled by that particular activity.

“Can´t say I´m good at it… I memorize things well enough, but, yeah… don´t count on me for that.”

“Do you live with your parents?”

Another round of “D´uh!”s and other expressions of similar connotation came flying from every side. She defended herself by saying, “What, you all thought of the same thing!”

“I actually live by myself… Can´t really complain about the place, either.”

A lot of the girls were suddenly cheering themselves for it. Jack had to intercede to put some order in the class, almost giving up halfway.

“What would you say is the worst part about being yourself?”

The blonde girl had said it, causing the entire class to look her way. That was the last question he´d have expected, but it came in as a welcome change of pace. He was used to talking about his condition more so than his other qualities, and that sort of introspective line of questioning would definitely cut the stream short.

“I´d probably go with me being a terrible sleeper. I´ve actually only slept 4 hours today, so… yeah, you get the idea.”

Everyone fell silent after that one. It had gone better than he had expected. Czesch had jumped one hurdle already and now it was time to continue the race.

“Alright, thanks Czesch. You can sit right in the back, pick whichever sit you want.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The back row was almost empty, apart from the blonde girl, sitting right next to the window. She seemed to be a bit of a loner by the looks of it, although Czesch couldn’t pinpoint the reasoning behind it. She looked fine by today´s standards and there didn’t seem to be nothing wrong with her… maybe she hung out with the wrong crowd? He really didn´t care that much to ask.

He sat right next to her, since it was the logical next place for someone to sit at. To his front, that boy who had defended him from the Czech girl. He was probably Jan, the other Czech person in the room. To his front left, that Czech girl, Lucie, was concentrating on not looking at the back. Czesch thought that it was either him or the blonde girl who were the cause behind that.

Jack went on to announce some stuff to the rest of the class, like selecting a class representative and all of that. Czesch was beginning to fill a little sleepy, the lack of any type of stimuli starting to take its toll and the lack of caffeine in his system not helping either. He decided that the only way to survive would be to start some conversation with the blondie. And what better way than reminding her of their earlier encounter?

“So… did they end up catching you?”

She didn’t even look his way, concentrating on a thought separate of the events occurring within that class.

“Talking to you, blondie.”

“Im trying to listen to our teacher.”

“That´s bullshit and you know it.”

She turned to face him, a hint of anger showing within her stare.

“Urgh… what the hell do you want? And don’t call me blondie again or you´ll lose it.”

“Got it, got it… just wondering if your bodyguards managed to catch up to you, that´s all.”

Anger turned to surprise, mixed in with a healthy dose of concern.

“My… bodyguards? What are you on about?”

“You know, 3 burly men in suits, really concerned about the wellbeing of a girl who seems to be getting more trouble out of it than she should.”

“Wait… you are the guy who told them off!?”

Her surprise was well founded, yet she managed to control her outburst in a way that didn’t disturb the class. Such was the way that things worked in the back.

“Nah, I just looked at the starts and guessed right… I´m a really good fortune-teller too!”

“Well, you are a moron.”

That had come more moronic than he had anticipated, she had a point there. Lack of sleep often forced him to say some rude remarks from time to time.

“Uhhh… sorry, I´m getting sleepy… tend not to be very nice when so.”

“What, you spent all night jerking off or something? Just… lemme be, I have some business I have to do after this class and you are breaking my concentration.”

“That so? OK, I´ll leave you to your “concentrating”.”

Czesch slumped over his desk and immediately fell asleep. 30 minutes later, he had woken up, only to see that Jack was giving out a finishing sentence. The blonde girl had left already, probably for a bathroom break. He felt a bit sluggish, but that was the norm for that kind of quick nap.

“Man, you sure slept your way through that one… he mentioned some important stuff you should have listened to.”

The boy who had intervened during the presentation was now speaking to him. He wore very recognizable glasses and seemed like the smart person within the class, yet not reaching the status of what Vivi and Nate qualified as a “nerd”.

“Huh… yeah, you can see I wasn’t lying about it when I told everyone I was a bad sleeper… Jan, I presume?”

“Yeah, nice to meet you… and this girl over here wants to say something to you… come on, Lucie, don´t be shy.”

Lucie stepped forward from behind his colleague. She wore stylisher glasses than him, with freckles all over her face and hair collected in a bun. Her previous act of bravery had now given in to a nervous apologetic state.

“Umm… S-Sorry for… calling you out in the middle of your presentation… it was rude and… shit, I felt bad after doing it. Hope you are not too mad…”

“Thing is, I get why you asked. Don´t worry, I think we are on the same boat. None of us really like what Czechia has become, right? Home is still home, no matter how much you look at it.”

“Y-Yeah, that´s it! I… I couldn’t just keep a straight face if you were one of… one of them.”

“Come on, Lucie, we don’t want to hammer him down with that kind of rant! At least, not yet…”

There was a short moment of silence that Czesch grabbed to let out a yawn that had been forming for a while. He didn’t really yawn that much, but a change of scenery often contributed to it.

“Hey , I gotta ask you something.”

“Shoot”

“You said you have been living here for the past 4 years.”

“… Give or take, yeah.”

“Umm… this may sound a little personal, but… you were back home during the war, weren’t you?”

Suddenly, the sluggishness in his mind had disappeared. His mind was active, finding all of those memories that still clouded his mind with horror and misery. He simply nodded at the statement, understanding their curiosity and desire to understand a conflict close to home.

“I thought so… we were both lucky we got out, our families decided to move outdoors as soon as the war started… you are actually the first person we found that was actually there. I´m sure you are not exactly thrilled remembering-“

“Tell me, did the rebels commit all those atrocities? Are the reports we read here true?”

Her sudden surge of interest caught Jan off-guard, but the Kid had seen it coming from a mile away.

“Come on, Lucie, he was probably too young when it all-“

“Yes… all of them.”

The answer took both Czech kids by surprise. The Kid felt old when remembering those times… really old. Men thrice his age hadn’t been through as much as him. Many more wouldn’t even stand on their feet after taking only half of it in.

“Then again… we were pretty much doing the same to them…”

“What was that? You were whispering something…”

“Oh? Oh, sorry, I… got caught in a thought. And I may need to take a whiz… where is the bathroom?”

“Bathroom is at the end of the hall, to the right… Hard to miss it.”

“Alright, thank you both! And Lucie… don´t worry, I aint mad. Don’t have many friends around here, so I´d rather start with a good foot with everyone.”

“That… that´s great. Hmmm…”

Czesch REALLY needed to take a piss. He had been holding it for a long while and he understood that pissing himself, while time effective, wasn’t the best strategy within the building. He went down the hallway and entered a mucky bathroom, typical in a high school like that. People from other classes were discussing random stuff and partaking in casual banter. Czesch cared not for any of it, he only wanted to piss.

He went out from the bathroom, only to hear a weird falling noise coming from a room next to him. It could have been nothing but, then again, curiosity was getting the better of him at this point, mainly because he was bored. The door read: “Maintenance: Auth Personnel Only”. Definitely a room he shouldn’t go inside… and he would definitely go in. After all, he wasn’t in company grounds anymore. Rules such as that one didn’t quite feel as threatening when the hardest punishment was being sent home with a note.

Upon entering, he found a huge ruckus had formed. Someone had tampered with a stand filled with a lot of computer equipment, and some of it had come down crashing into the floor, leaving a ton of broken glass shards on the floor. This looked bad… real bad, especially since his long-forgotten bodyguard instinct kicked in to put him on alert.

“Anyone alive in here? Did the evil PC screen scare you away?”

He calmed down, focused his senses, stopped his breathing for a moment. He could hear someone in the room… his (or her) breathing and heart pounding… he located the region were the mysterious person was supposed to be in. And, luckily for him, he knew that person already.

“Oh, hey, Blondie”

“Shit, you scared the crap out of me!! Don´t do that again!!”

“I didn’t take you for someone who´d do espionage… quite a big flop, if you ask me.”

She came out of her hiding place, dusting off her pants and stretching her arms.

“Urgh… you are probably gonna rat me out to the headmaster, aren´t you?”

“Yeah, like I ratted you out to your sworn protectors… “

She looked at him in disbelief for half a minute. Then, she bothered to respond.

“… You aren’t?”

“I wont if you tell me what you are trying to do in here.”

Blondie gave it some thought. Sighing deeply, she forced herself to concede to his wish.

“I… well, shit, I guess I have nothing to lose… Ok, sleepyhead, this is the deal: One of our teachers, Mr Phillips, is a complete dick to me. Thinks Im a bunch of tits with a weigh on her head, giving me bad rep and scores just because he feels like it. Well, I´m going to enter the school server mainframe and change his profile and résumé with his account. Because I feel like it.”

Sabotage… the Kid still remembered the thrill of his first ever corporate espionage contract. Maybe some training wouldn’t do him any wrong.

“… I´m in.”

“Pardon?”

“I said I´m in. Lemme help.”

“You have to be- You don’t even know the guy!”

“Sounds like an ignorant fool by your description. Come on, It´ll be fun! Besides, the moment I come out of this room, someone is going to be walking down the hall and they´ll probably come in asking questions… so you are stuck with me.”

“Shit, you got a point… fine, you can help.”

“Thanks, Blondie.”

“And stop calling me that before I open up a new one on you!”

The girl started tinkering with another door, trying to get the lock open with a hairpin. Czesch simply watched at her failed attempts at opening it, wondering if he should intervene or stand guard.

“Umm… I thought this was the maintenance room.”

“Yes, but they also use it to house the server so that no one- fuck.”

“You know whats behind that door?”

“I´ve already done this before, only last time I had a key and- shit!”

“So… you sure you have this?”

“The lock is harder than I thought. They changed it last week, but I´ve already practiced with- bugger!”

“Need help with it?”

“You know how to open a lock like this?”

“Well… you aren´t putting enough weight, so the tumblers aren’t budging. That hairpin isn’t going to cut it, we need something stronger.”

“Alright, smart guy. Find me a lockpick in this messy place, I´m going to keep on trying.”

2 minutes and Czesch had already managed to craft a small lockpick out of some spare parts that were lying around the place. It was shoddy and probably would break after use, but they would only need it one time. Buri would probably complain nonetheless, since he had been his teacher on the matter.

“Wow… nice work, buddy. Took you for a sleepyhead, not a robber.”

“I, uhh… did learn a couple of things from some of my friends.”

“Well, what do you know? It actually budged!”

With the door open, the girl went on to a small laptop connected to the server. She hit the power button and waited for it to boot up while Czesch walked around the place. It was a smaller room than he had thought… then again, it only had to house a server.

“Why do you have to do this directly at the server? I mean, you probably could do it with a small laptop nearby. A bit of an unnecessary risk, if you ask me.”

“Because the information I can put in here will be stored permanently and can only be modified from here, simple as that. I want that bastard to remember me for a long time.”

“Hmm. Can´t see how that can go awry.”

“Just shut up and- Ok, user… password is… OK… ah, shit!”

She began biting her hand in frustration, a trait that Czesch had noticed in certain people.

“What?”

“IT guy changed it. I forgot about him… arrggh, why does everything have to fuck itself right when I make a move!? This is bullshit!”

If there was one thing the Kid hated was seeing people about to give up, even though the girl wasn’t even close to do so. He sighed and came closer to her.

“… Want me to try?”

“Oh, now you are going to tell me you are a professional hacker.”

“Not professional, but… you have his username, right? I can work with that.”

“What, another trick from one of your friends?”

“Uuuhh… yeah.”

“Your friends are a weird bunch, you know that? Well, considering mine… whatever, do your thing!”

The friend in question was an Irishman in the Intelligence Department of the company, known to everyone as Gaz, even though his name was Gavin. The nickname came from an incident in a company barbecue, in which Czesch saved the man from becoming a third-degree Two-Face knockoff. Since then, they became the closest thing to buddies that they could be and he was often in charge of supplying info for the SOT during ops and for Czesch´s external work. Half the information Czesch was getting in Zimbabwe came from Gaz´s informants.

“Okay, let’s see… it was a 1 in here, if I recall.”

“Thought you knew what you were doing.”

“Havent done this in a while, OK? I´m a little rusty.”

“Rusty, yeah… as if you were planning on doing this for a living.”

“I might one day if its profitable.”

She chuckled, trying to release all the tension building up within her.

“Yeah, if you do, I´ll remind you to get me a discount if I ever need you to do something.”

“A discount? In your dreams… okay, two more to go aaaand… done! Go ahead, it’s all yours.”

“Sweet!! Time to make that fucker pay!”

She was good at typing, Czesch had to give her that. She went into a maelstrom of furious writing. Czesch did notice that she was being quite precise with her wording and that she was having no trouble at writing a convincing piece. She was holding out all her rage against that person and using it in an effective manner… She was far off from being a dumb girl with a grudge.

“You sure are writing an essay on “How to bury a teacher”

“Hey, I´ve been holding this for a while… came here today because I wanted to put it to rest.”

“I mean, I´m guessing he´s a bit of a dick, but you are taking this quite far.”

“Saying “a bit” undermines his dickyness.  He´s a misogynist and a pig.”

The girl had character, he knew that much… now that he thought about it with more perspective, he didn’t know that many shy women. He had only known one and… he stopped himself yet again.

“The best kind of person to hate… errr, Blondie?”

“I told you not to call me that… what is it?”

“Umm… I think that man has noticed we are here.”

“Huh!? What man!?”

“That one.”

One of the teachers had heard people talking in the server room and had just burst in, the Kid too busy being relaxed to notice the sudden entrance. It was impossible to run away, so both of them were caught on the spot. They were lead to a waiting room for the headmistress´s office. Both Czesch and the girl were left waiting for something to happen, and didn’t speak until left completely alone.

He could feel her stare as if she was throwing daggers at his back. It was a sensation too etched in memory to ever forget.

“This is your goddamn fault.”

“Mmmmhmmmm”

“Ah, shit… I should have guessed something like this would have happened.”

“What, you never got caught before?”

“I sure did. Don´t you know? I´m in the school´s blacklist, a troublemaker, a fiend, an “indecent” person, that sort of school of thought.”

She chuckled yet again, only this time it was one filled with anguish and despair. She was certainly against the world branding her in such a way.

“Huh… I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“This is my 1st time this term, but last… oh, boy, I saw this office way too much.”

“… Boredom does that, right?”

He spoke from the heart, something he rarely did. Vivi did say that he had to change the way he acted… and what better testing field than a school without any consequences?

“Huh?”

“You don´t really seem like a bad person. I just think that you are bored and want to do some poetic justice, that´s all. People may label you as a vagrant of some sort, but… I don´t get that feeling from you.”

“Well, appearances are misleading.”

“I think you are quite open as is.”

Her stare slowly receded to normality, or whatever she considered that to be. She wasn’t quite as mad with him anymore, that was a certainty.

“Maybe I am… but this is still your fault.”

“I was speaking a lot, so… yeah, my bad.”

They were both called in. The headmistress, Miss Faraday, a plump woman in her early 40s, with short, dark hair that seemed made of soot, a large mole coming out of her right cheek…  looking like she was about to go in a blood crazed rage at any moment. With a girl like Blondie, she would definitely need some sort of tranquilizer.

“Both of you, take a seat… now… Czesch, I´m so sorry you had to get involved with this… troublemaker… You are new, so you are probably unaware of her almost criminal record.”

“Almost… she says it like she expects me to start murdering or something at some point.”

“This little prank of yours is out of place and you know it, missy! Only because you and one of the teachers have a grudge doesn’t mean you can break into an unauthorized area and hack the school´s servers!”

“That man shouldn’t even be teaching here and you know it! He´s an asshole and a pervert!”

“Well, you have to take that with his department, not-!”

Blondie smashed the table in front of her with her fist, making it dramatic enough to get the headmistress´s attention.

“He is the head of the bloody department!! And you won’t lay a finger of him because of some bullshit reason or another! What, is he family and he´s too much of a shame to throw him out there to embarrass everyone!?”

“… I was thinking of just giving you detention, but it seems like you also want me to tell your father about this?”

Blondie pressed forward, her face as close as possible to that of the headmistress.

“Don’t you dare bring my father into this! If you have a beef with me, I´ll settle it, not him.”

“Girl, you are out of the line!! I´m not throwing you out because of him, but one more event like this and I assure you I´ll do my best to make sure every school in this city closes its doors on you!”

“Do whatever you want, I don’t give a crap…”

She sat back down, avoiding having to look at anyone. Miss Faraday was visually sweating, so she started cleaning her sweat with a handkerchief.

“Urrghhh… I´m really sorry, Czesch… you can leave now, head back to class. I´ll be signing her for detention in a bit.”

The Kid thought he had misheard… was he getting away without punishment?

“Ummm… Excuse me, Miss… Faraday, but… what is my punishment here?”

“Oh, you are new in school. I´m not going to punish you for this, it´s a rookie mistake.”

“Huh…You are kidding, right?”

Both women looked at Czesch, who couldn’t believe what he was listening to. He was being exempted from any effect because he was simply new there. What kind of shitty practices were those? Annie in particular was the one filled most with disbelief.

“I´m… not kidding here, Czesch, you are free to go.”

“That´s bullshit and you know it well.”

“I… I, look… Czesch, she definitely convinced you in some way to-“

“No, she didn’t. I helped her out of my own free will, is that so hard to believe?”

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t-“

“I´m her accomplice in this. The least I expect is the same bloody treatment. Being new shouldn’t get me priority access, that´s not the way I lead my life!”

Annie muttered something resembling a “why?”, all the while Miss Faraday began sweating again.

“Look, Czesch, I just can’t throw you in detention on your first day! A no is a no!”

“Fine… then what could get me in detention, since apparently helping her out doesn’t count?”

“Damage to school property, but Czesch, you are missing the-“

Point. She wanted to say point, but something happened that threw her into a rage. An object had mysteriously flown through her window and into her car, crashing both the window and the windscreen in the space of a few seconds. A few hours later, both Czesch and the girl were both in the detention classroom, with an asleep interim watching over them. She was clearly upset, but didn’t speak until the teacher stopped noticing them.

“You are a damn idiot.”

Nate´s sarcasm kicked back inside his mind, prepared to commit another crime to comedy.

“Ooohh, you don’t have to be so sweet to me.”

“Really, you are a goddamn idiot. Why didn’t you just leave?”

“And miss the fun? Fuck that! Besides, it didn’t seem fair… the different treatment and all. I´m an advocate of equal rights.”

“You threw one of her things out a window… and into her car, all because you thought it didn’t seem fair?”

“I wasn’t aiming for her car, but… when you put it like that, it does sound kind of stupid. I´ll pay for it anyways, she shouldn’t have to worry too much.”

“That´s why Im saying you are a complete idiot.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

They had some silence for a while. Then she spoke up again, her anger transformed into something resembling gratitude… an angsty sort.

“… Still, no one else would have had the guts to pull that off… it´s the sort of thing that just doesn’t happen in this town… Thanks.”

“What for?”

“What for? Do you even have to ask? For everything! This morning, cracking open the server room and… standing up for me.”

He visually recoiled at that last statement. Had he really done that back there?

“Standing up for you? Don´t get your hopes up, I just wanted some justice served… like in your case. I hate when people do what that Faraday woman was trying to pull off.”

“Yeah… haha, seems that justice always ends up screwing with people like us.”

The girl was finally coming close to forming a smile on her face. He wasn’t looking her way, so he couldn’t really tell if she was or not.

“Or we screw up with their sense of justice… I don’t know, I´m no philosopher.”

“Then what are you?”

“Im a guy who wants stuff done right. And with little patience for bullshit like that.”

Again, silence took hold of the class. This time, Czesch thought that he would get some sleep before being thrown out of there. The girl insisted on the opposite.

“… Annie.”

“Hmm?”

“My name… it´s Anna, but friends call me Annie. I know I… have little to no right of calling you a friend or anything, you got in here because of a mess that was mine. But… you´ve helped me so much, and I´m getting a good vibe from you… it´s the least I can do. I heard you were new in town, so-“

“Annie… sure sounds similar to Blo-“

“Don’t you say it.”

“Ok, Ok, I was kidding! I was getting tired of that one anyway.”

“So… you wanna be pals?”

It was an interesting proposition. She seemed like the sort of person that ventured in the streets at night through the worst kind of neighbourhoods… a dangerous sort of bravery within her eyes.

“Are you going to get me into more trouble?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Come on, yes or no.”

“Probably a “yes”, but-“

“Then I´m in.”

His sudden smirk took her by surprise, as she chuckled yet again.

“Huh? Why would you? People often try to get away from trouble, not find it.”

“You really want to know?”

“I´d like to, yes.”

Czesch stretched himself in his chair, while Annie stared at him, as if scanning him head to toes to find the trick behind the person in front of her.

“I´ve spent the last 8 years living non-stop. Like, my “vacations”were always spent learning something or doing something else, never catching a break. This is… actually my first time at a real school and I´m already starting to feel a bit… bored… out of place, not being able to do stuff. I´ve already read most of the material they´ve been giving out and I can´t help but feel I´m running around catching my tail.”

“Yeah, high schools have that effect on people.”

“So… I… don’t really know what a person is supposed to do when bored. I´ve always done so many things that I barely had time to even consider what would happen in a situation where I couldn’t do something productive. To put it in simpler words, I… have no concept of “free time”… and I don’t think I want to experience it.”

“Well, you are experiencing it right now.”

He had been talking out of his ass during that explanation, but she seemed to have taken a genuine interest out of it.

“Really? This is it? I thought it would be much worse… it isn’t good by any means, but…”

“Well, conversation spices things up… and you are an entertaining guy yourself. I´d probably try things out with an idiot like you if I wasn’t with someone else already.”

That was an interesting prospect. Nate had explained that certain individuals, both men and women, often liked to cheat when in a relationship with another, being labeled as “two-timing” and regarded as bad people. Annie just showed that she hadn’t reached that level yet.

“Hmm, so… are you bored right now?”

“A bit, but talking with you is definitely helping it be more bearable.”

“Aahh, so that´s how it works. Thanks for the clear-up, Annie.”

He didn’t really need it, but he was glad to know that his conversation skills were up to par, even if they only worked in awkward topics.

“Don’t mention it. It is something that even kids understand. No wonder you are an idiot.”

“I guess I must have experienced it when I was younger, but then things got… difficult.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nevermind.”

Silence again. The clock was ticking and rain was starting to pour outside again. Czesch and Annie both groaned at the same time, causing both of them to look at the other and start laughing.

“By the way, my answer is yes.”

“To what?”

“To being your pal. I´m new in town, so the more people I meet, the better.”

“You sure about that? Life might get real tough if you do...  I´m not exactly a “safe” person to be with.”

The word “tough” made the Kid´s face light up in delight.

“I want life to be tough! Always been, always will be! Besides, where´s the fun in an easy one?”

“You are, without a shadow of doubt, a total idiot.”

“If I have to be one to enjoy this sort of stuff… then I guess I am! In the end…”

He leaned back in his chair, his smile turning sour before speaking that realization out loud.

“Better to be an idiot than a dead man walking.”

Annie walked along with Czesch after detention. They didn’t speak much, only making slight remarks and some explanations regarding certain teachers and events. They were walking at a slow pace. Czesch, because he had no rush in coming back to the apartment. Annie… because he wanted to stick close to him for a little longer.

What had just happened? A few hours earlier, he was just another one in the bunch, another teenager stuck inside the educational machine. Another pedestrian walking by the street. Then, out of nowhere, he suddenly seemed to… glow. To radiate some sort of aura around him. An aura that had piqued Annie´s interest.

And what was with those final words of his before falling asleep? What was so good about being an idiot? What did he know about being a walking corpse? Annie could certainly relate with the latter. If a person finds little to no joy in life, then struggling to keep up often feels like forcing a dead person to stand. Annie often felt that way, and sometimes she needed help to keep up… and often that help hurt her in a bad way. She wanted to quit using that help at one point or another but, in the end, she was too afraid to leave it at that.

Annie often thought that life was a colourless road, everything stricken by shades of grey and black. Morality and ethics were a joke to most and justice was a pretty word invented by a few people living a life above the rest of us mortals. Justice… she still believed in true justice… so did Czesch. Maybe the world wasn’t as grey as she thought. Maybe there were people that put color in the world through their own actions and beliefs.

Czesch was definitely an oddball and an idiot. For a second, Annie had seen a guy running straight into a brick wall, hoping to crash through it. Of course, he had failed miserably, but that had been his intent all along. And for a moment, for a single second… she had believed that he was capable of doing so. Was that the aura that guy walking next to him threw around? The power to break through any obstacle, to jump every hurdle, to win every game?

She didn’t know. She didn’t know what to think of him. He was probably a delusional person, a dreamer. A man set on defying the world, only to be crushed by it. She had seen people like that before, but most of them had been drawn to their knees. Even knowing that… why did she believe this one would be different?

He was from the Czech Republic, Annie gathered as much. She had heard of that terrible civil war they had been through. 4 years of conflict, a perfect representative of human condition at it’s finest. Maybe… maybe Czesch had been in there. Maybe that is why he was so positive, because of what he had seen. Maybe he was seeing all the gloom and desperation of the city and thinking “This is paradise compared to what I have been through”. Maybe… just maybe…

“Hey, Czesch…”

“Hmm? What is it?”

“You said… that, uuhh… you thought I wasn’t a bad person.”

“I don’t really think you are. Honest.”

“Are you saying that because you´ve actually met real “bad people”? The sort you don´t want to meet up in a dark alley at night?”

He looked to the sky for a moment, immediately taking a deep breath.

“… Not a single person is evil by nature. Some of them simply twist in a manner that renders them something else than human… monsters, I call them… some are more human than monster, others… simply stop caring… I´ve seen my fair share of them, so trust me when I say you don’t even come close.”

“You think?”

“I´m just seeing a girl who is doing what she thinks best. You probably want to hang out with your friends or do something productive. Instead, you get to sit down in a class and listen to a guy speak who hates your guts. And you probably already know about what he is trying to explain, so it ends up being even more annoying.”

“Most of the time? Yeah, that kind of shit repeats itself non-stop. I´ve been through with British Literature like 5 tim- Woah, I´m… I´m not a brainiac, OK? Forget I said anything.”

She looked away from him, the fact her mind functioned better than the average student now known to him. She tried her hardest to avoid seeming like too much of a gifted person, and she had managed to do so for the most part.

“Hehe, I doubt I can! You are way smarter than you look. I noticed while you were writing that rant about that bastard teacher of yours. You are an excellent writer.”

Praise on a field she hadn’t practiced for years caught her off guard, forcing a nervous laugh out of her.

“W-Well, I wouldn’t say “excellent”! I mean… I like writing, but I often don’t know what to write about most of the time.”

“At least you´ve got that. The only thing I am good at writing is reports and- w-well, not much else!”

That was… interesting. Even more since he tried so hard to deviate to something else.

“Reports? You write reports? About what?”

“It´s, uuhhh, family matters. I often help with paperwork and similar.”

“Ooohh… didn’t know you still helped with family stuff, since, you know… you said you live alone.”

“It´s not completely “family” per se… it´s very complicated to explain in one sitting.”

“It´s OK, I got you. I know the feeling of living in a flat alone.”

“What, you too?”

“Yeah. Actually surprised me to know there was another person in my situation.”

“Well, the more you know… hey, wait a minute… you were actually listening!”

That smile on him… the teasing sort of smile, one that managed its purpose.

“W-What? I´m always hearing stuff, I wasn’t listening to you!”

“You remembered that! I knew you were a genius!”

“S-Shut your trap, idiot! I don’t wanna hear it!”

“You know you love it!”

“Only when it’s not coming from your mouth!”

The conversation kept on coming and going for a while, until they reached Czesch´s building.

“Well, this is my place… Are you sure I didn’t lead you off ways? I mean, you look like you´ve got your head in some pretty dense clouds.”

Her thoughts often kept her from listening to outside comments, but she often reacted quickly enough to make up for her lack of awareness.

“Huh? Oh, no, I´m… actually surprised! I live 2 streets over from here! Feels… good to have a classmate so close. Most of my friends live in the center of town.”

“Man, talk about coincidences… what time is-? Oh, shit! I gotta go, meet you tomorrow at school, OK? Ok, Bye!”

“W-Wait!”

And off he went. He had a very powerful sprint, she had to give him that. In half a second he was gone. And she felt like the world was turning to grey again, the clouds forming up again for another shower of rain.

She would need to take some of her “medicine” soon. She didn’t want to, but she knew Czesch wasn’t a cure by himself.  She wanted the color back. She wanted it desperately.

She started walking home, humming one of the tunes she had just heard on the radio.

Report for Panama, supply route E509: Route Alpha under attack by guerrilla movement, no shipments lost, switched to Route Bravo until green light is given. Government has repositioned forces along the NW front to cut off insurgent advances towards an important enclave. COIN (Counter-Insurgency) tactics employed through Blue Sparrow handlers effective at maintaining security. Encourage recognizing efforts on operatives in the country.

Report for Peru, supply route C343: Routes Alpha and Bravo impaired, latter through rainstorms and other weather complications. Route Charlie has been set as alternate until either Bravo has been cleared of debris or Alpha is under control again. Government unable to cope with pressure, suggest offering COIN propositions at this point onward. Waiting could provide more leverage, but rival companies may move in to take advantage. Leaving decision to region manager.

Report for Zimbabwe J1005, Codename “Mufasa”: SAS operatives managed to capture brother of HVT. Are now on the process of setting an exchange operation in which to capture/execute said HVT. Trouble with local guerrilla movement, not as cooperative as initially expected. Suggest sending Support Group “Zephiros” to aid SAS operatives in mission. Expecting update in the following days.

19:00. The magical hour… and Czesch had just managed to finish the last of the reports. Mary wanted all reports in the mainland sent before 19:00 every Monday. Only the weekly ones, mind you. Still, there was one report he had to fill up… one that he didn’t really have anything productive to write about.

Report for Harville Z0001:… Still adapting. Will report further on a later date.

That report was as truthful as he could make it. The day hadn’t gone completely awry, but, boy had he struggled! He had spent most of his first afternoon in detention, having an opportunity to get some sleep without anyone bothering him apart from Annie. Speaking of the devil… She was definitely a lively one, getting into all sorts of trouble. An attitude like hers would definitely make Czesch feel at home.

He´d probably need to speak to Jan and Lucie as well. He found he got along with them pretty well as long as they didn’t mention home. They were now probably a little worried about that whole detention ordeal, he had given them little to no information in later classes. He´d tell them everything the following day, that was for sure.

He wondered if this was the right thing to do. He had friends before… even though they referred to each other as brothers and sisters,  sharing the same burden and pain. Part of him was telling him that what he was doing was betraying them and their memory, that making these new friends would heal no wounds… not that he wanted them healed anyways.  But he had to move on, he knew that much. That was their motto after all: “Gotta keep on moving.”

He had a photo of all of them, before shit started hitting the fan. Most of them had managed to pull off a smile. Everyone was there: Sabrina, Rabi, Jusuk, Hek, Mila, Linda… and there they were, Laria and him. Bishop had snapped the picture right after they formed the squad, all tired and happy after weeks of constant dread and punishment. Sabrina was overjoyed, Laria´s smile was forcing her to close her eyes… even he was putting a small grin for the camera. Remembering all that was… kind of sad, considering how the game ended.

His cellphone rang as he stopped reminiscing. It was Vivi, probably calling to make sure that he hadn’t shot anyone. Then again, knowing the state of the city, she probably expected a couple.

“Czesch speaking!”

“Hey, its me! How is my favourite warrior doing?”

“Guess I´m doing alright… finished writing the reports, made myself a quick snack… you know, the good life.”

“You know that´s not what I´m asking.”

“Uuhhh… day one went without a hitch, Ma´am… how is your little brother doing?”

She fell silent for a few seconds. It was a touchy subject, he understood that much.

“Oh, he… he´s fine, a little nervous, but I told him to just stay sharp… I´m sure he´ll come back safe.”

“Mmmhmmm…”

“So, did everything go according to plan?”

“Not at all. Got  thrown in detention and everything.”

“Aaand we are off to a good start, aren’t we?”

“Am I detecting sarcasm? And here I thought you told me to quit it.”

“Nate´s sarcasm is a league above whatever I may conjure.”

“Well, no need to worry, it was just a small misunderstanding. Besides, I get the feeling that things will start to get interesting from now on.”

“So… no one got killed?”

“For the time being, no.”

“For a second there, you had me worried… your voice sounded a bit off.”

“I was just watching a picture, remembering old times.”

“Oh, you mean that one? Huh…”

“Yeah… that one…”

Silence, an understanding sort yet again. They were really good at letting the other gather his or her thoughts.

“You do know circumstances are completely different?”

“I do.”

“So, don’t worry about it. Have fun with them.”

“… Thanks for calling, Vivi. Means a lot.”

“Well, thanks for picking up. I gotta go, Rob needs help with something. Talk to you later!”

“Same!... well, now that that´s done with… time to start making dinner, I guess.”

The phone  rang yet again, stopping him short of opening the fridge to check his supplies. This time, it was a message from Jenny.

-Are you home?-J

-Yeah, what´s up?-C

-Can you come over? I wanna talk with you about something. It´s important.-J

-Sure thing. Gimme 5.- C

Czesch had no idea why she wanted to talk now of all moments, but it managed to bother him. If it was about Paintball, however, he had the stuff. Karen´s “Ants” had managed to make a swift delivery. By the time Czesch got home, the Paintball gear was already prepared, with a combat suit, mag holder, helmet, Modified AK5 Carbine and a CZ-75 Duty pistol for good measure, as well as a plastic bowie knife.  Everything apart from the knife looked like something the military would use, except for the protector in front of the helmet, which he discared to a side.

Czesch knocked on the Hawford´s door, hoping one of them would be kind enough to open it sooner rather than later. Apparently, it was Terry who opened it, apparently not having to work that day at night.

“Ah, Czesch! Good to see you, come on in, come on in!”

“Thanks Terry! Good to see you too!”

“Honey!! Czesch is here!”

“Tell him to come over!!”

“OK! Go right on ahead. You know where her room is, right?”

“I think I have a general idea.”

“Hahaha, you kids have fun!”

Czesch knocked on Jenny´s door before coming in. The room was still a bit of a mess, but it looked like she had done some cleaning… that or her parents had done it for her while she was out. She was playing some sort of shooter game on her PC… it looked unrealistic as hell, considering how many bullets her opponents were taking.

“The recoil on those guns is bullshit.”

She jumped on her seat when he heard his voice so close to her

“Jesus! Oh, it´s just you! You scared the crap out of me.”

“Well, that´s 2 in one day…”

“What?”

“Nevermind. What type of game is this anyway? A shooting gallery of sorts?”

“It´s mostly a reflex test. Helps with hand-eye coordination, as well as tactical thinking.”

“Those guys are taking way too many shots.”

“Well, if you died in one hit, it just wouldn’t be fun, you know?”

“Wouldn’t be fun… right.”

Czesch sat in her bed, since it was the only place he´d be able to sit down in the entire room. It was comfortable enough, so that was a plus… a bit too comfortable, though.

“So, you wanted to talk about something with me?”

“Well… I wanted to ask how the first day went, that should be a good start.”

“Hmmm… 6 out of ten… wait, scratch that… 7 out of ten.”

“Better than you expected?”

“By quite a large margin… what about you?”

“Eehhh… a 6 as well… met some girls and had some fun with them after class, nothing too fancy though. I can already tell I won´t get along with most of them.”

“Well, that´s good to know. All I got was detention.”

She stopped clicking her mouse for a second, shooting a glance his way, then immediately went back to finish her game.

“Wait, are you serious? On your first day?”

“Yup.”

“Must have done something really stupid.”

“Stood up to someone because I didn’t think she was being fair.”

She made a face as she tried to decipher the hidden meaning behind his actions.

“Ok, maybe Im not seeing the fault here, so-“

“I threw some sort of memo at a window and it hit the headmistress´s car on the windscreen.”

“Alright, THAT was stupid… or just rotten luck.”

“In my case, probably the latter.”

“After that, you still rate it a 7? Way to be optimistic about it”

Was he being optimistic? Thoughtless was a better term, or at least he thought so.

“Well, it was a weird way to end the day, but boy, was it fun!”

“I´m guessing the hour or so in detention wasn’t as fun.”

“I spent most of it sleeping anyways, couldn’t tell the difference between detention and class.”

“Goes to show… never read a book by its cover.”

Her immediate chuckle after that comment got him worried.

“Hey, what´s that supposed to mean?”

“For a second, I thought you were a more grounded person… guess I was wrong.”

“I am rational whenever I want… but when Im seeing someone being treated unfairly, then… I can’t help but try to act.”

“White Knight complex?”

She took the words right out of his mouth… quite quickly, too.

“Sometimes. Only if its worth it.”

“You really are one of a kind.”

“Yeah, people often say that about me… not in a good way, more often than not.”

A bit of silence. Jenny downed 4 more enemies during it, making just a few unnecessary moves. He didn’t quite understand the rules behind that shooting gallery, but he could see that she was exploiting every possibility she found.

“You are quite good at that game.”

“Could go pro if they had a tournament in here.”

“I´m guessing they don’t have one.”

“Gaming industry is still taking baby steps, and most of the people that play these games are male, so… yeah, a bit hard to get a spot.”

“But you´d love to play at that level, right?”

“It´d be fun, but something tells me it´d get boring after a while.”

Talk of boredom yet again… maybe that´s what drove most people in the end? Not being bored more so than sustenance… 1st world problems, as Buri would often say.

“Boring, huh? Interesting…”

“Say, you play any of these?”

“What, shooter games? Don´t have much time for them, to be honest. Usually have way too much stuff on my hands.”

“And you are saying you do have time for Paintball?”

She caught him there. Leisure time went both ways when questioned about certain activities.

“It´s… different, you know.”

“By the way, when are you planning on showing me your stuff? You´ve seen mine already, only seems fair.”

“Any time you want. Got it from my old place.”

“Sweet! Can´t wait.”

Again, more awkward silence. She was busy finishing up her game, while she tried to hide a feeling he couldn’t really put a name on. Czesch felt like he was about to fall asleep on her bed, which wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do, but it was bound to happen at any moment.

“Aaaaand, done!...Umm, Czesch?”

“Huh? Yeah, yeah, Im up!”

“Wait… were you… about to sleep on my bed?”

“What!? No! Noooo! Of course not! I was simply… relaxing a bit!”

“Good… because sleeping there is a really bad idea… did I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Ma´am!”

She took a moment to take deep breath and gather her thoughts. It seemed like she was about to announce something important.

“I… wanted to ask you something… and… look, I know it´ll sound weird, but I can´t keep this on hold any longer and you are the closest person I can ask for advice. You seem trustworthy enough and you live alone, so that has to do it.”

“Great… and here I thought friendship counted for something.”

“Just… hear me out, OK? It´ll help me out a lot.”

“Well, just go ahead and hit me with it.”

“A friend of mine has this small problem… well, not small, quite huge to be honest… aannndd… thing is, she might not be too fond of guys…”

“What, fell off with her boyfriend? Day one and you girls tell each other that sort of stuff?”

“No, just let me finish, smartass!...  what I mean by that is that… she might not quite be into guys.”

He suddenly felt as if he had been hired to fix the waterworks of the whole town. Why was she throwing all that information his way? Did she really think he´d be able to give good advice?

“…You mean sexually speaking? Not in a merely friendly context, I imagine”

“Well, yeah, yeah… now answer this… would that friend of mine… be into girls, by any chance?”

They were entering grounds that where in no way his area of expertise. Had she asked him about the quickest way to kill a person, then he´d have answered effortlessly, but sexuality was a subject matter where the only knowledge he had came from Sabi… and she hadn’t been the best of teachers.

“… Why are you exactly asking stuff like this to me? I´m not a psychologist or a sexologist, you know.”

“Still beats talking with my parents about it and I don’t want my new friends to think Im weird for asking!”

“Right, right… well, I guess she could be a lesbian… either that or she´s simply asexual… that´s also a thing, even though most people barely think about those cases.”

“How could she tell if she was the former?”

“Well… it´d supposedly be an attraction similar to boys but in girls. Thinking they are pretty, imagining weird stuff about them, getting butterflies in their stomach, that sort of thing.”

“And the latter?”

“Her not feeling a bloody thing about anyone around her… sexually speaking, of course… that´s the theory, I won´t claim to know the praxis.”

“Oh, OK… Thanks for the clear-up, you really… helped out… yeah…”

She turned around back to her computer, leaving the Kid both weirded out and overly curious. He never liked answering questions and not getting the proper context behind them. The fact she was acting so nervously and tried to avoid any further conversation… could it be that…

“… Alright… this just left me with a weird aftertaste.”

“I know it wasn´t something you ask someone you met yesterday, but-“

“Jenny, are you a lesbian?”

The question came from the bottom of Czesch´s throat and into his mouth. It was the direct definition of what Nate referred to as a “suicide question”, like pulling the pin on a grenade and choosing not only not to throw it, but to carve it deep into the large intestine to spray your surroundings with shit. That was the type of question the Kid tried his hardest to not have to utter.

… And there he was, saying it all the same. Jenny froze in place, slowly turning around with a glare that could kill if it were weaponized. Czesch gulped instinctively, feeling that he somehow got into that situation with his parents at some point.

“W-W-W-W-W-What!?!”

“I-I didn’t mean it like that! I mean, it did sound weird and I´m sorry for asking, but… come on, it was obvious with the whole “a friend of mine”!”

Sometimes, Czesch considered if part of him was truly suicidal in nature, because that had just made matters worse, with Jenny coming in closer with fists tight and ready to strike.

“You motherf- I´m gonna… I´m gonna…”

She was on top of him, holding some sort of trophy she must have won at a Paintball game. She was preparing to bring it down and onto him, while he had already assumed a defensive position. He had to talk some sense into her while there was still time.

“If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won´t! Trust me, that is the last thing I want to do!

“Huh!? You think you can just give me your word and get away scot free!? You are probably thinking I must have a screw loose or that I am some sort of freak of nature! You don´t have the right to judge!”

“It´s not weird or amoral or anything along those lines! I´m telling you this much because one of my friends was a lesbian and I´ve never had as much respect for a person!”

“Oh, yeah, right! One of your “friends” was one, that makes things better immediately! Tell you what, why don’t you ask her what I can do now about it, huh!? Come on! I´m sure she´ll be able to tell me how I´m supposed to approach this mess!”

He fell silent, remembering the words of the girl that kept that hopeful smirk on her face and that other one whose madness kept the spirits of broken men high up in the sky. Those two… he was still wondering whether they had been a couple or not…

“I… I can´t… you can´t speak with her.”

“And why is that!? I thought you were all about helping people… white knight my arse!”

“I can´t… because…. she died…”

Jenny held off her strike, staring at his dead eyes the moment he spoke of death. She put her arm down, feeling that she somehow had done enough damage by just making Czesch, a war victim, remember something he probably didn’t want to bring up. The Kid merely sigh, having to talk about an experience that still felt surreal within the war.

“Her name was Sabrina… She was a really tough girl, probably the toughest I´ve known. No matter how much muck and filth the world threw at her, she´d just wipe it off and keep on her way, not caring if we were behind her or not. She had a really bad temper from time to time and there were moments were I was genuinely more scared of her than the bombardments… When we all found out she was a lesbian, she simply shouted: “So what, you think just because I´m into girls I´m going to go into orgies or some shit like that? I´m sure some of you boys have thought of that already!... Well, not on my watch you wont! 50 laps around this building! If I see anyone slacking off, I´ll cut it off!”

“Wow, talk about a temper.”

“She never let anyone tell her how to feel or how to express herself. She was, in the best sense of the word, a true “free spirit”.”

Jenny sat down next to him, dropping the trophy to a side and holding her knees towards her chest.

“… She actually sounds like someone I´d like to meet.”

“Well… part of you reminds me of her… the part that just asked random questions out of the blue… oh, and you aren’t as cheerful.”

“Cheerful? She did threaten you to cut your cock off!”

“She did it in a lovingly way, that´s why she was so special. Even when she got mad, she did so in a disarming manner. Quite the spectacle, to be honest.”

“And what happened to her in the end?”

That was a dark place in memory, dark enough that he didn’t want to enter it a second time. He merely lowered his head and played the victim, hopefully convincing her of not having to ask again.

“… I… I think I´ve already said enough about her.”

“Oh, s-sorry! I guess you don’t want to remember that part…”

“It´s alright… some wounds never heal completely, that´s all.”

Silence again. Jenny was silently mulling over that information, while Czesch kept at a safe distance, still keeping his guard up. One wrong word and he´d be in a world of trouble… then again, she probably knew that hitting him would cause a ruckus and attract unwanted attention. Her only option was to talk it out.

“So… is it… OK, to be a lesbian?”

The question was something the Kid understood, yet only in part. He knew there were people against same sex relationships, but he couldn’t understand the reasoning behind it.

“There´s nothing wrong with it. You know that our neighbours are a gay couple, and they are fine like that.”

“Yeah, but… isn’t that kind of different?”

“Why would it be? A guy loving another guy is the same principle as a girl loving another girl. Nothing wrong that I can think of there.”

“I mean, a lot of people think its wrong… that the usual thing is “guy likes girl and vice versa” and that it should stop there.”

“Well, those people can go fuck themselves if they can’t let people be happy with their lives! That´s the sort of people that defend how Ancient Greece was the birthplace of civilizaction when the men shagged each other whenever they pleased!”

“… Even if my family thinks that way?”

“Do they?”

She denied it with her head before moving on.

“No… I´ve… never actually told them about it.”

“Huh… Well, I suggest choosing the right moment. Afterwards, they are going to have to deal with it, whether they like it or not. Simple as that.”

“Yeah, “simple”… I wish things were as simple as you put them.”

“They rarely are, but that´s why we adapt. Because life tends to fuck things up like that.”

“… You think that… there are other girls like me?”

“What? Girls who are having a hard time coming to terms with being lesbians and not knowing how to feel about it? From what one of my friends told me, plenty.”

That friend was Vivi, who lived through a similar situation during her short stay in a UK highschool… main difference being that they weren’t allowed to talk about that subject in public.

“It´s just that… I don’t want to go at a girl and find out that she´s a hetero… you know, don’t want the first experience to flop like that.”

“Nah, I´m sure you´ll get it right… in the meantime, I´ll keep my mouth shut about it… if you want, that is.”

“That… would probably be the best for now.”

Awkward silence again. Right then, Czesch had felt the same feeling as he did while crossing the jungle in Laos. Danger at every bloody corner, both in the form of mines and local wildlife, with the latter being a girl his age who finally sighed in relief after holding an absurd amount of hostility a few minutes prior.

“You know? Opening up like that… I feel… a bit better, for some reason.”

“Yeah, it usually does… talking from experience here.”

“Feels good to have someone else knowing what you are going through… Czesch, you are a really good guy…”

He couldn’t help but be proud. Finally, he had managed to help out someone by just talking! Not firing a single shot! How crazy was that?

“A friendly neighbor lending a hand, that´s all.”

“Yeah, keep brushing it off like that… Thanks for listening…”

“People often say Im a good listener… when I keep my mouth shut and am not fast asleep, that is.”

“You really have a sleeping disorder,  don’t you?”

He scratched the back of his neck, not trying to appear overly nervous

“I wouldn’t call it a disorder… more like, an ability to sleep anywhere at anytime.”

“Hehe, you really are messed up.”

They both talked about random things like that for a while, until Czesch noticed that he was peckish (Knowing what true hunger was like, he refused referring to what he felt at the time as such) and that he had made nothing for dinner. The prospect of a dinnerless night was something he wasn’t quite prepared for.

“Well, I guess I´ve got to go. Getting kind of late.”

“Yeah, I´m starting to feel a little hungry myself… do you want to have dinner with us?”

“Ummm, thanks, but I´ll pass this time. I have to get rid of some food in my kitchen for this first week. Afterwards… I might take you up on that offer.”

“Cool… so, you are going to keep the secret, right?”

He raised his index finger and pressed it against his lips while getting up from her bed.

“My lips are as sealed as those of a KGB spy.”

“… Promise?”

“White Knight´s word”

“I guess that´ll have to do.”

And that was Czesch´s queue to leave. He didn’t really understand what had just happened, but he felt like he had barely managed to get the situation under control. His life was based around that, keeping under control situations that escape the grasp of so many. Comparing a firefight to a dispute may sound far-fetched to some, but to the Kid sometimes one had to take it as such to come out of it alive.

After apologizing to Terry and Julia for any inconvenience, he went back to his apartment and made himself some dinner. It was basic stuff, so he didn’t waste much time on it. Afterwards, he went over to the fire range to blow off some steam. While he was at it, he decided to try on the Paintball gear and check if Karen´s sense of style was still on top. It was way lighter and more comfortable than his usual Kevlar-rigged attire for missions, since it only offered protection from balls of paint. The AK was a spectacular recreation of the original, only even lighter, which was saying something. The CZ-75 felt extremely good, like his own one, with a similar gas system operating inside. Overall, Karen had kept her word on delivering.

“Shit, that´s right. She wants a picture… I wish I knew what for, but… meh, probably something stupid.”

After taking the picture, he put everything back in its place and called it a night. He was even more tired than he had initially thought, talking about feelings and such.

Tomorrow would be another day… he knew that much.

He woke up right before 3rd period, not quite remembering what had happened in the 2 prior. It was his second day and already he was sleeping through classes like there was no tomorrow in sight. Annie hadn’t come to 1st or 2nd period, and Jan and Lucie were too far ahead to give any conversation to. He felt a little bad, even though his naps were only around 30 minutes in length and he caught most of what the teacher was saying at that time.

“Czesch, it´s a god damn miracle you don’t snore at all.”

“Gimme a couple of years, Jan. I´ll be snoring like a walrus by then.”

“Do walruses even snore?”

He shrugged while keeping his head on top of his desk.

“I don’t know. I don’t come up with this stuff.”

“You don´t? Then who does?”

“I don’t know… I´m just sleepy.”

He burrowed his head against his backpack, repurposed to act as a flimsy cushion between classes.

“Jan, just let him be. He isn’t bothering anyone.”

“Well… I cant just let him ignore class in good faith. It´s in my blood, you know that.”

“Is what the teacher explained in the book?”

“Well, yes, but-“

“Well, I´ll just memorize it afterwards… listen to Lucie here, she knows what she´s doing.”

She shot a smile his way, thankful for the compliment.

“Why, thank you!”

“I was just trying to be helpful, sheesh…”

Annie arrived at the classroom with a mess on her head and a face riddled with the marks of her bed-sheets. It looked as if she had woken up really, really late and had made a mad rush to get to class. Some of the girls whispered behind her back, but she paid them no heed.

“Ooohh, so that´s how she sleeps at-“

“Shush! She´s going to hear you!... Morning Anna!”

She merely nodded her head at Jan while she sat down and opened her bag. Lucie took her chance and got closer to her.

“Morning, Anna… looks like combs and fresh water are mortal enemies of yours.”

Annie´s look wasn’t quite murderous, but it still had some anger within.

“… Shut up… I was planning on doing it here… you don’t mind, do you?”

“Suit yourself… so, what happened with you and Czesch in detention?”

“He mostly slept… I just tried not to fall asleep myself.”

She began combing her hair, making it go straight yet again in a flash.

“Hmm… exactly like Czesch put it… weird… Czesch, could you-?”

He was already fast asleep, breathing calmly and surprising all those around him.

“God, don’t tell me he fell asleep again!?”

“Seriously, this guy is a professional! Wish I could do it like that myself!”

“Not you too, Lucie! I already have enough with this guy not paying attention.”

“zzzzzz…hmm? Oh, shit, I really am getting sleepy in here. This building does wonders…”

He yawned at the same time that Annie smashed her hands against his table. It did nothing to startle him.

“You need to quit whatever you do at night! It´s stopping you from learning anything, even if it´s redundant! Why would you be here and not in bed if all you do is sleep?”

“I don’t know, Annie… but I just cant help myself…”

“Besides, it´s impossible to rest your head on these desks. They are designed against that.”

“She´s got a point, he´s probably the first to be successful at it.”

Both Lucie and Jan nodded in agreement, noticing that slight design choice that made their lives at school even harder.

“It aint stopping him… look, there he goes again!”

“Arrgghh, I cant believe this is going to happen every bloody day! I should just wake him up!... Then again…”

Annie took a good look at the Kid´s face, and found herself chuckling at how angry it looked.

“Hmm? What, having second thoughts?”

“Well… his mouth is shut… I consider that a plus.”

“And he looks cute when he sleeps”

Jan took that remark with a pinch of salt… then immediately saw that she wasn’t kidding.

“Lucie… you watch him while he sleeps? Don’t you think that´s… creepy?”

“What? Every girl in class does it.”

“What do you mean by-? Oh shit, you are right… most of them are doing it right now. I thought they were simply looking at me.”

“Yeah, because you are a perfect playboy… shit, wake him up, Hawkins is coming in!”

Annie grabbed his head, pulled it up and smashed it against his table.

“Hmmm? Ouch, hey, what was that for!?”

Professor Hawkins entered the classroom, telling all students to sit down and pay close attention… attention that was suddenly focused on the blackboard. Someone had written “History is complete wank”. He wanted to know why that was there, not getting angry in the least, and people would definitely tell him. Out of all the teachers they had, Hawkins was at the top, even though his subject was the most boring of them all.

“Well, sir…The thing is…we don’t really see what we are getting out of it. History doesn’t really help us in our everyday lives. That´s why some people find it useless and boring… it wasn’t one of us, though! It was from the A group for sure!”

“Are you kidding me? You are making history now, girls and boys! You are breathing history, living through it as we speak, coursing as if we were passengers in a ship!”

He was quite good at it when he didn’t go off-rails, of course. Then it was pretentious talk like that which got most of the people in that room to doze off, Czesch included.

“That´s all fine and good, sir… but we aren’t ancient history. I don’t understand how Henry the VIIIth and all of his wives have to do with anything we are doing.”

“There´s quite a smart saying that I repeat in this very class every year when this question pops up… whoever gets it right, gets an explanation of current history instead of ancient one! Who knows it?”

Most people in the class weren’t exactly sure what he meant, since that was the first year he taught in that group. Most were thinking, while Annie was finishing her hair and Czesch was… still sleeping. Seeing him mumbling under his breath, she gave him a good kick on his chair to get his engines rolling.

“zzzzz… Argh! Buggers who forget the shit in their past will end up faceplanting in it! Nate, for fuck´s-”

There was a moment of silence followed by an avalanche of laughter. Even Hawkins was getting a laugh out of Czesch´s incredibly scientific assessment, with him nervously scratching the back of his neck while trying to avoid getting any more attention to himself.

“My, my, we have a comedian in our midst! I don’t remember your name…”

“Oh, Czesch, sir! Got transferred yesterday!”

He got up in a manner similar to that of the army, with Annie trying not to laugh too hard while saying something along the lines of “Holy shit, sit down already!”

“Alright, Czesch… you got it right, but the register was… not ideal, to say the least. Mind trying something a bit less suburban?”

“… All those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it?”

“Very good, Bravo! Yes, that´s exactly why we must keep our history close to ourselves! So that we never fail to remember all the mistakes and misdirection we took in the past! All for a better and brighter future!”

That saying was close to Czesch´s heart… after all, he had commited his fair share of mistakes. Ones he wasn’t planning on forgetting any time soon.

“… Never forget…”

“Hmm? Were you saying something, Czesch?”

“No, sir! Not at all!”

Noticing he was still standing up, he sat down, sighing deeply while burrowing his head in the book in front of him. Annie gave tapped him twice on the back to give him some comfort.

“Ok, good, good! So, Czesch, thanks to you, instead of going back to revisiting William the Conqueror, we are going to set our eyes on a more contemporary type of conflict, much more interesting and recent… tell me, have you heard of the conflict in what is now the Republic of Azghar? Happened a few years back.”

“Yeah, I´ve heard a thing or two.”

Heard a thing or two… he had participated in the conflict that had shaped the republic in itself! It had been his first operation in the company, so he still remembered all the nervousness and choking sensation in those dense jungles of South-East Asia. It was an experiment, a test for the new and upgraded SOT to test their effectiveness… one they didn’t pass with flying colours, but with good marks nonetheless.

“So, you must have heard of the famous 1 week war of Azghar! Both royalists and republicans fought in the capital for 7 days and 7 nights and, finally, after a cruel and vicious struggle, the republicans managed to get victory, while the royalists disappeared to the jungles . The war in itself had various causes, but the Casus Belli was the deposition of monarchic powers by the king of the old country, which sparked a revolt which in turn led to the combat in the capital. I want you to remember that this war, in actuality, only had repercussions inside the capital of the country, while the rest of the world kept on with their lives. Now, if we-“

That war had been so woefully underdocumented that the version fed to public eyes differed greatly from the one the people at the ground lived through. With larger conflicts around, it was no wonder such a small scale civil debacle ended up with information only about that one week of intense fighting. It didn’t feel right, he had to intervene.

“Sir… may I interrupt for a second?”

“Yes, Czesch, what is it?”

“You are wrong… that is, it didn’t quite go that way.”

Silence fell in the class. Annie and Lucie almost chocked just by listening to that statement, and both started coughing., while Jan was simply appalled by the sincerity with which he had said it. He found himself standing yet again, with all eyes on him.

“W-Why is that, Czesch? Care to explain?”

“…Hmm? Oh, no! No need, I… If I had to explain it all, it would eat up all of your class, sir!”

He gave out a nervous laugh while scratching the back of his neck, but Hawkins wouldn’t budge.

“Czesch, I insist… if you feel I´m explaining facts in a wrongful manner, it is your duty as a student to correct me if need be… so, go ahead… explain yourself. Come to the front!”

“Are… Are you serious, sir?”

“Go ahead, the board is yours!”

Czesch walked over to the front of the class and went over to the blackboard, still half asleep. With a piece of chalk, he drew, from memory, the layout of the country to remember the correct parts of his adventure there. The map was mostly a sketch, although he was a bit surprised that he remembered it so well after all that time. It showed that certain things stick in memory, especially when Vivi forces them down your throat.

“If I remember this correctly… the 7 days “war” started around May… So we must go back to February of that year. To clear up some misconceptions, it wasn’t a monarchic-republican struggle at first. It was a conflict between interest of two branches of the crown, traditionalists and pro-democratic. The traditionalist branch was lead by one of the princes, while the democratic one was lead by the king himself. The traditionalists had a strong foothold on the northern side of the country… this area here, covered in jungle and mountains, literally the worst place to start a rebellion… they had no support from other countries and their resources were less than those down south… That is the moment when they began profiting off diamonds.”

He stopped for a moment to jot down his memory correctly. He didn’t want to get facts wrong, but he didn’t want to reveal way too much. Hawkins didn’t stop him, merely scratching his chin and studying his explanation.

“With diamonds, they secured themselves a large amount of currency by selling them to third parties, which they wasted on military material and on hiring paramilitary contractors, most of them specialized in guerrilla warfare and coming mainly from Afghanistan and the Balkans. The pro-democrats, knowing of the influx of military agents, decided to hire some of their own, although they concentrated their efforts on training their troops more than hiring a lot of mercenaries out of the blue. The south had oil, the north diamonds… a lot of PMCs started flooding the region to fill their pockets deep, with those aligning themselves with the pro-democrats getting a far better treatment more often than not. Between February and May, there must have been more than a hundred different small skirmishes between both groups and companies working around them, with only a few hundred casualties at most…”

Another pause. He was starting to remember more and more details about that whole ordeal, but some were still of sensitive nature… hell, all of what he was saying was the unofficial version. He scratched his neck yet again, reading his notes yet again to get back on track.

“Interesting fact: Skirmishes between proper PMCs never happened. It was always between militias and governmental forces, with companies only ever firing shots when they knew for sure there were no other groups in the area. If there was an accident between businesses, there was always a payment for any damages caused… quite a polite way to fight a war, if you ask me. After those months, the traditionalists discovered a horrible truth: Diamonds are harder to come by than petrol… and after wasting most of the capital on military material that most of their men knew not how to use, they found themselves in a bit of a pinch. You see, Mr Hawkins, the Casus Belli might have been that stepping-down of the monarchy, but the conflict in itself was caused mainly by the inability of the north to sustain a long term war with the south.If the prince wanted victory, then a quick grab for power was in order, but he simply didn’t have enough resources to push his advantage.”

With most of the class to shocked to even properly react, Hawkins stood up and, with a cold stare and expressionless visage, raised his hand to stop Czesch from going any further. He pondered whether he had said something wrong.

“Interesting… you said that it started off as a pro-democratic movement, but you never stated that they were going for a republic. How did that come to be?”

Now it was his turned to look surprised. Did he really want him to explain futher?

“I never did because it wasn’t in their plans. It was a last minute decision, caused by the defence of the traditionalists up north against COIN tactics by their own troops… t-that is Counter Insurgency, for those who don’t follow the jargon. The fact that they decided to follow through on the fly was probably an important factor to the pro-democratic victory.”

“How come?”

“Well, for one, the traditionalists weren’t expecting it. They knew they had to move fast before the act was signed or they would lose credibility for not immediately acting against it, but they didn’t know the exact time. And even when being mostly prepared, they still managed to be late. The main reason behind it was that their vehicles weren’t all jungle proof, since they expected to be using them only down South… they suffered an absurd number of accidents and equipment malfunction due to the Spring rains. Took them more than a week after the fact to position themselves at the capital and, of course, that was way too late to be meaningful. Even if they won, they would have little to no international support.”

“What about the battle in itself? Was it at least as the reports mention it to be?”

“It was a suicide charge. Not only were the governmental forces better trained, but most of the paramilitary and all the PMCs in the traditionalist ranks left immediately after the clusterfuck with the transport of equipment, so the contractors still in with the government had complete freedom when firing. According to some soldiers, it was like hunting, only morbidly easier. The traditionalists never recovered and the monarchy stepped down for a republic, which most people desperately wanted after months of suffering rebel attacks… if only the North had spent more money on training their troops, they probably would have won, since they had bigger numbers and better organizational skills.”

“So what you´re trying to say…”

“It was a weird conflict, that´s for sure… and most people willing to fight in it did so for the coin. Around 10 companies in the US, 5 or 6 from the UK, 2 French and some Spaniards decided to be the last to leave. A lot of material which the traditionalists bought just wasn’t used at all, so it’s just sitting there waiting for buyers…”

He suddenly realized he had been rambling on and on without any restraint and immediately bit his lip. Everyone in that room was staring at him, mostly with disbelief by those in the back. He went back to scratching the back of his neck to ease some of the tension

“I-I hope it wasn’t… too long, y-you have a class to give after-!”

“Could you… perhaps, clear some doubts for me?”

“Oh… A-Alright, what would you like to know?”

For the next 40 minutes, the teacher was the one making heartfelt questions to the student, while the rest of the class watched in awe as the transfer student taught history to their professor. Czesch was mildly aware of most situations that had occurred, since he had lived most of them and a good number of the company main operatives were involved in one way or another. It was his first massive deployment, more than 200 people sent to different tasks in that far-away country, so it came as no surprise that he knew so much about it. Especially taking into account the nights they spent talking about their daily struggles in that jungle.

By the end of his explanation, the bell had rung and Mr Hawkins was still catching his breath from the onslaught of information that Czesch had given, while he felt his parched throat was about to give up. The rest of the class agreed with the former on that matter.

“W-Well, Czesch… I must say, you do know a fair share about that conflict in particular. Any reason why?”

“O-oh, uhhh… friend of a friend of mine was a news correspondent in that area, covered most of what I explained during dinner one time, but didn’t get the chance to publish it. And he´s the kind of person that forgets he has already said something like that again and again, so… yeah, heard it quite a lot of times.”

“I must say… that was the most well reported, incredibly detailed explanation Ive ever seen about a human conflict in all my years! And from one of my students, no less! Girls and boys, give your classmate a huge round of applause! He bloody well deserves it!”

They didn’t much applaud for Czesch´s explanation, but for the fact that good old Hawkins had just used the word “Bloody” in a sentence. Czesch simply went back to his desk and sat down, slamming his head against it. Annie, Jan and Lucie were still wide-eyed.

“D-dude…”

“How the fuck did you do that?”

The entire class was now surrounding him. While not quite intimidating, it was still uncomfortable.

“Hmm? What exactly?”

“You bossed Hawkins on his own subject! The guy does a shitton of research on events like that, and you scrapped the floor with his face!”

“Huh…Well, I guess I managed to pull it off... I got really nervous when he told me to go out.”

“You didn’t even flinch while explaining! It´s almost like you do this for a living!”

“I… I guess I was more asleep than anything… still am.”

“Still, that was an amazing explanation right there… maybe you could do them from now on, huh? Now that would be-“

He went back to the land of nightmares, leaving the entire classroom to watch him snore yet again.

 “Jesus Christ, he´s already asleep!”

“That took less than 30 seconds! Is this guy even human?”

While most present began laughing at the Kid´s unnatural ability, Lucie and Annie shared their real thoughts on the matter.

“… I´m going to need some aspirin, because just trying to understand his sleep pattern is giving me a headache.”

“You and me both, girl…”

The rest of the day went by, and Czesch had managed to sleep through most classes without issue. He went off with Annie and Jan, since Lucie was getting picked up by her parents. They started walking along the school´s main soccer field,  with people training relentlessly by kicking balls and dribbling them around. They looked quite desperate while doing so, with Czesch coming to the conclusion that they were try-hards looking for glory in a competition as dirty as football could be. A bit like a battlefield, upon close examination.

“Seriously, Czesch, you aren’t taking notes of any subject at all! You aren’t going to pass that way.”

“Give me a break, Jan… I´ll worry about exams when they come.”

Annie gave him a hopeless look, shaking her head, then stretched her arms and clasped her hands behind her head, elbows facing forward. It looked like it was comfortable.

 “When that happens, I think you´ll just be too late… and I´m not giving you my notes. I already have quite a hard time without them.”

“I was going to ask Annie anyways.”

She stopped right on the spot and gave him a hard stare.

“Excuse me?”

“You do take notes, right? Ive seen you scribble down at class from time to time.”

“What are you-!? You telling me that you are actually not sleeping in class!?”

He tried looking to a side while letting out a prolongued vowel, but Annie grabbed his mouth and put it back up front. She kept staring menacingly at him, so he thought it best to answer truthfully.

“… Sometimes… I do open my eye when I feel like it.”

“Motherfucker! I knew something was off!”

“Dude, if you are awake, try to listen to what the teacher is saying, you won’t miss a thing!”

“I´m already listening!... I just do so with my head down and eyes closed, that´s all.”

“You really are an idiot.”

At that point in time, Czesch heard something coming towards him at considerable speed, along with a “Watch out!!” that was coming way too late. His ears were wide open for any dangerous noisy and the whooshing sound of air as it moves aside was a clear one. The direction of the object was towards him and Annie, mostly her position. It was definitely something small, but not minuscule, so Czesch knew he´d not have a hard time catching it.

He stretched out his arms and caught the object right before it hit Annie. She let out a small scream, while Czesch discovered that the object in his hands was, in fact, a rubber football. Jan chocked at the fact that Czesch had grabbed it without really looking in that direction, simply guessing where it was headed.

“That was coming straight at me! How did you..?”

“Huh, I thought I´d have a harder time catching it… then again, its rubber. Good training, though!”

“Dude, that was a sick catch! You must be an ace goalkeeper or something like that.”

“I have played football before, but never as one… I should have given it a try if that´s all they do.”

One of the people playing, probably the captain of the team, went over to get the ball. His face was a mixture of both pressure and anxiousness… it reminded the Kid of a great deal of patriotic soldiers who gave their lives on the battlefield. All eagerly preparing for combat… was that why people took the sport so seriously?

“Hey, sorry about that! We are training really hard today and- Jan! I didn’t recognize you there for a second!”

Jan readjusted his glasses for a moment, then chuckled upon recognizing the person in front of him.

“I should have guessed it was you, Kieran! Only you guys would be daft enough to train at this stage.”

“Hey, Im not giving up just yet!... S-Sorry about almost hitting you, Anna. That shot was way off.”

Annie grabbed the ball out of Czesch´s hands and handed it abruptly to Kieran, while she tried her hardest to maintain an expressionless face.

“I got lucky that Czesch´s reflexes are off the charts… or else you´d be having this conversation with me on the ground.”

After laughing nervously, he turned towards the Kid, sweat still dripping from his forehead and heart pumping at great speed.

“Czesch? You also from the Czech Republic like Jan here?”

“I am, nice to meet you.”

They shook hands effusively, Kieran clearly on a sport high like no other.

“Czesch, that was an amazing catch. I´ve never seen anyone with such mad skills as-“

Jan immediately pressed his hand towards Kieran´s face, much to his surprise.

“Dude, don’t do it.”

“B-But… Jan, he is my last hope! Our last hope! Don’t do this to me, man!”

“Only if you tell him the whole ordeal. I know you love to only point the good part of deals.”

“If I tell him, he´ll probably do like the rest and leave!”

“From what I little I know of him, Czesch aint nothing like the rest… right, dude?”

That whole “last hope” ordeal did pique his interest. After all, he was there to get acquainted with society… maybe helping this Kieran person was a step in the right direction.

“Hmmm… what do you exactly mean by “last hope”? It sounds a bit off, for some reason.”

“Yeah, Kieran, you are making no sense right now… and the way you put it is a bit creepy.”

“Ok, Ok… just… listen to me here.”

He took a deep breath before starting. Czesch was seeing the face of a guy driven to desperation… well, a lower sort, but desperation nonetheless.

“Back before the term ended, we played the city tournament and went right to the finals. That´s where we faced the Trambeltons…”

Annie clicked her tongue, clearly disgusted by that particular mention

“Those Trambeltons? The ones whose name comes from the captain of the team? The one who is son of a high-ranking mobster for the British mafia in town?”

“Wow, wouldn’t have thought it was public knowledge.”

“Most of us are smart enough to know where we live, Czesch… so, that them?”

“Yeah, those guys. Well… lets just say that the referees were paid quite a lot to make it unfair. Not only that, but they play football like it was the Middle Ages all over. I still feel pain in my leg whenever I remember that day…They beat us to pulp, six to nil.”

Jan covered his mouth, as if seeing that event yet again.

“I remember watching that game… it was horrible… worse part, nobody batted an eye… no one could with the Brits on top.”

“After the match, a tournament inspector decided to let us have the victory, since we had played an unfair and unbalanced game and we deserved that much. However, there was one condition the Trambletons imposed…”

It wasn’t too hard to see where he was going with that. Even the Kid could realize that much.

“… A rematch, I presume? With all the training you are doing, this is clearly not a normal friendly game.”

“Yes, Czesch… worst part, we need to treat it as if it were a “return” game… that means that we need to score higher than they did to win this one… and it was 6-nil. I´m not sure if you know your football, but getting there is a stretch, even if they were to play fair.”

“And they are going to play dirty again?”

“Most likely.”

“Hmmmm…”

“I literally have no one else to turn to! I just need someone to stand under the goal, all my keepers are down in one way or another! I cant get anyone else!”

Jan grabbed Czesch by the shoulder and pulled him to a side along with Annie.

“Czesch, I saw that game first hand, so trust me when I say…Those bastards are a bunch of sadists. In every game they play, someone always leaves with broken bones.”

“Think about it hard, dude. I want someone to help Kieran, I really do… but I don’t want people to suffer because of it either. Having a buddy in a hospital bed wouldn’t be good for my conscience.”

“It´s up to you, but know it´ll end badly… just like any heroes in town…”

Hundreds of questions started piling on Czesch´s head, to try and dissuade him from what he was about to say. In the end, he sticked to the one question that had made up his mind: Was helping Kieran the right thing to do in that situation? The answer was as clear as day.

“Where do you want me and when is the game?”

He thought he had misheard for a second, then his face lit up like a Christmas tree, a smile with missing teeth and cheeks as bony as a skeleton.

“Wait, what!? For real!?”

“Wow, you gave it almost no thought whatsoever… typical of a sleepyhead, jumping the gun…”

“Dude, don’t come back to me crying because of a broken arm or something similar. I already warned you.”

He ran and hugged Czesch while laughing like a maniac, a scene that had taken place an absurd amount of times before his eyes.

“Czesch, thank you, thank you, thank you! Game is on Thursday, after class! You can train with us now, we´ll lend you equipment we have!”

“Sounds like a plan!”

He started heading with Kieran, but turned around in the last second to face his two companions.

“Alright, catch you two later! I´m going to learn how to goalkeep!”

As he went away with Kieran, Jan and Annie looked in his direction with a deadpan look in both their faces.

“Did… did he just say “learn to goalkeep”?

“They are fucked… they are officially fucked…”

“You think? I believe he´s got it.”

“I hope you are right… because, after the game, I believe we´ll be seeing him in a wheelchair.”

“Nah, he´s built of a different paste, he´ll handle it.”

“We both met him yesterday, how do you think you know that?”

Jan shifted the weight of his backpack and looked at Annie with a smug smile.

“… I know enough just by knowing where he came from… oh, shit, I´m late to my study session! Gotta go!”

“… Crazy idiots…”

Czesch spent the entirety of the afternoon training with his new football colleagues. They were impressed by his ability to stop almost all of the balls they threw at him, jumping like a madman and grabbing them with his hands. The only thing the Kid was actually doing was practice an old exercise he had done a long time ago.

Czesch was one of the few students of a young martial art named “Dáz Prikhêna”, of Eastern European origin. His father had taught him the essentials, but Bishop had been his mentor, saying that it was both a defensive and offensive art, depending on what the user made of it. The defensive part, or “stít”, concentrated on anticipation and disarmament, made up entirely of non-lethal techniques that ranged from breaking balance to breaking bones. The offensive portion, or “útok”, was exclusively dedicated to teaching the fastest ways of killing a human being, both painful and painlessly. The whole idea behind it was, in lack of better terms, a “rythmless rythm”, “asynchronous synchronicty”, a dance with a million melodies and a dancer jumping between them at leisure… something only a few could truly master.

The exercise in question was a “stít” one, called “Catching Breaths of Angst” by his father. It revolved around the possibility of a hostile party throwing objects at the user and the impossibility of evading them. The main point was coordinating both hands and eyes to make contact with the thrown object at the exact time needed for a perfect grab. Such a technique for a goalkeeper would make him unbeatable in most situations, but for a soldier it meant increased reaction time when dealing with thrown grenades. As a kid, he would train by catching rocks his father threw his way, often times hitting their mark or flying beside him before he got it right.

He´d probably train all night to make sure that his technique was well polished. He hadn’t trained his martial arts for a long time, since most of his close quarters situations revolved around his pistol and knife, and for his knife he used a mixture of Dáz Prikhêna and a style of his own. Most of his movements were now in his subconscious, but he still got rusty from time to time when dealing with memory exercises.

He went back home feeling beat, but also quite excited. He was going to play against a bunch of entitled douchebags. As Nate put it, “nothing is more satisfying than showing some rich pricks what you are really made of”. Czesch had never really done anything of the sort, the only people he had ever fought were either revolutionaries or contractual High Value Targets. In the end, he didn’t really know how it actually felt.

He did some more training before going to bed, thinking if it was the right thing to do. Whatever the case, it would probably make his “getting adjusted” process much smoother. Nothing like sports to make ties with people… he had learned that much in the war.

The next morning , Czesch slept through most of his classes and went again to the football field to train some more. This time, not a single ball got inside the net, which gave the team a much needed morale boost, since most of them still remembered the massacre that was their last game. Knowing that they had an unbeatable goalkeeper would bring them an opportunity to worry about an offensive line-up. Then there was the matter of the cheating…

“So, Kieran, you say they´ll come down on us?”

“Like I said… they play like its rugby, except they only do it when the referee aint looking.”

“… Football is a sport for gentlemen played by ruffians…”

“You could put that in a quote book!”

He scrateched the back of his neck yet again.

“I think someone already beat me to the punch… by the way, don’t you think that being the captain makes you a more visual target for them?”

He shot a glance at his armband, suddenly feeling like he was about to get killed for wearing it.

“You have a good point… last game those bastards were directly on top of me. Was lucky I mostly got bruises.”

“Mostly?”

“Twisted my leg the wrong way, spent a month and a half in bed.”

Czesch snapped his fingers, realizing the easiest solution was to make matters his own.

“I know! Let me be the captain for this one. They´ll have a harder time going after me and you can still lead around without it.”

“But they will thrash you nonetheless! I don’t think you´ll be able to keep the goal safe with people kicking you around, and you are the only keeper we have.”

“Aah, don’t worry about me! I´m built out of really hard stuff! Those pricks wont make a dent.”

Of course, they would make a dent. More than that, actually. The main rule in the battlefield is not being tanky, it is evading damage as much as possible. Czesch had quite a high pain threshold, but that didn’t mean that a kick in the stomach wouldn’t throw him down on the ground moaning. It just meant that he could handle more before losing consciousness.

They ended up training less than the day before, thoughts set on the D-day. To Czesch, these people had been waiting for the morrow with anxiety in their hearts for a long time. He was a newcomer, he hadn’t seen the same outrageous cheating they had. But he understood their cause, and he would fight alongside them to make it right. Old habits tended to die hard in his line of work.

Annie, Jan and even Lucie had tried to talk him out of it yet again, saying that having a leg or an arm broken on his first week was not in Czesch´s interest. But he had already promised to help, and his training told him that, once a contract was given, only his commanding officer or the client could rescind it. So he would never back down.

He relaxed for the rest of the day, cleaned up the apartment and got reports from his operations. Panama and Peru were back on track, no problems over there. In Zimbabwe, Operation “Tanned Thunder” was set for Friday of the following week, and “Zephiros” would be on standby to support the SAS team in case things got ugly. Everything was in constant motion, and he was glad that the people on the ground were aware of the risks involved and were involved to the level they were.

Another night of 30 minute naps passed, more nightmares involved in it. The following morning, he would face what the boys at the soccer club considered hell on Earth. He chuckled a bit thinking about it, since he had actually been in the closest thing to a hell on Earth.

One he went back to every night.

“Gorgeous, do we really have to watch this?”

“What, you are saying no to a bunch of kids kicking the crap out of each other? I thought you got off at it.”

“Well, yeah… but I have stuff to do. Important stuff, you know.”

“You can probably do that later. Besides, this way… you can spend more time with me.”

“Yeah… I guess I´m always up for that.”

Annie had decided to bring her boyfriend, Pete, to watch the game. Pete actually knew Kieran, since he was the little brother of a member of Pete´s gang, of which Annie was kind of a member of. Pete dealt in a lot of shady, illegal activities, some of which had him running away from the coppers more than once.  He was a nice guy most of the time, but he was a bit naïve and, even when not mad, he still had a hard time restraining himself.

Annie had brought Pete over not only to stay more time with him, but also because he had seen the last game the Trambeltons had played. He knew what to expect and so he would tell Annie if what they would be witnessing in a moment was part of the norm or something out of left field.

For some reason, she knew she would bear witness to a bloodbath. She wasn’t a believer at all, but even she was praying for both Kieran and Czesch… the latter more so than the former, for reasons only they knew.

Meanwhile, in the locker room for Kieran´s team, the team huddled up to get their fighting spirit on.

“Alright, this is our time!! Come on, gents! Lets show those gobshites what we are really made of! “

“Fuck yeah!”

“Fangs out, people!”

“Let´s get these bastards for last time!”

The two teams went over to the field and started flexing and heating up for the game. It had rained not 30 minutes before, so the air was quite heavy and humid. After a couple of minutes, both Czesch and the other team´s captain, someone named Frank, met at the center of the field. The man had an eagle-like nose and an overall smug face that made the urge to punch him way too justifiable.

“Oh, what is this? The peasants decided to get a gorilla for their negotiations? My god, they´ve upped their selection in the evolutionary chain! How quaint!”

The highborne taunting wasn’t helping… it was about time to get the Nate brand of insults to shine.

“Wow, I didn’t know you people understood the common language, seeing you posh lot enjoy having your butts scraped by an old geezer passing as a steward! Thought you communicated by spitting shit at each other!”

He took offence to that, meaning he really had someone cleaning his ass.

“Enough jibber-jabber, you know what´s going to happen. If you guys give up now, you´ll only leave with your pride hurt.”

The Kid couldn’t stop himself from giggling, with faces hungry for victory waiting behind him for the match to kickoff. He got closer and and grabbed Frank´s extended hand.

“Vepřové, by the end of this game, you´ll be crying… like the little bitch you are. Remember that.”

Their hand shaking was filled with anger and evil intentions. Both went to their positions, Czesch swearing to himself that no ball would go through the goal as long as he was between the two posts. He smacked his face, took a deep breath… and the game began.

It was a fast start, and Kieran´s offensive had caught the Trambletons off-guard. 1-nil to Kieran, who managed to score an overhead kick above their keeper. Czesch could feel the Trambleton hooligans right behind him, booing and insulting him for that. He paid them no mind.

First attempt from the Trambleton´s failed miserably, as Czesch caught the ball in mid-air without issue, and threw it back at the midfield. For the first 10 minutes,  only one more goal entered into the score for St Vincent from an offensive counter, while the Trambletons held off from doing any foul play.

At the 11th minute, one of the Trambletons stepped on the leg of one of the players, leaving him screaming on the floor from the pain of the iron plugs in their shoes. Now, the Trambletons would take advantage of every chance they had to do some damage, yet the player, someone named Donnie, got back up and continued playing.

Czesch stopped a dribble attempt trying to get inside the area. He caught the ball and immediately received a kick to the groin. It wasn’t a powerful one by any means, but he still felt it. He kept on playing by gritting his teeth, just like everyone in the team. There would be no referee on their side for this one, so they had to play over the foul play. It was, in the best sense possible,  a battle of endurance on their part.

Half of the 1st time and another goal scored for St Vincent from a breach in their defence. 3-nil, only 4 to go. Czesch prepared himself for another attempt by the Trambletons, knowing very well where he had to be to stop the ball. Easing his breath, his eyes were kept on the ball and it´s surroundings, hands and body at the ready to jump at the very first sign of danger.

Suddenly, he felt something crashing on the back of his head. Something heavy and which had broken on impact. Czesch fell to his knees, feeling dizzy and in great pain. Blood started dripping from the back of his head, his vision becoming a bit blurred. And, even under those circumstances, he still heard the ball trying to head inside the net. He jumped and caught the flying object before it reached its target, dropping on the floor as he did, cursing loudly and punching the floor as he tried to keep it cool.

The hooligans had thrown a bottle at him, with enough misfortune in it that it had broken on impact. It wasn’t Czesch´s first time with bottles. A year before, while protecting a well-known politician, he had blocked a bottle of a similar caliber with his head. The worst part of them was getting all of the glass shards out cleanly, but it was definitely a lot better than a bullet.

He got back up, blood steadily dripping away from his body. He was a little anxious, but he was dead-set on staying in control. He threw the ball again to the mid-field, trying to keep himself from going batshit crazy and from beating up the shouting monkeys behind him. The hooligans threw another object at him again, only this time he managed to catch it mid-air. He gestured over at them, basically saying “Pull that shit again and that fence wont stop me” by slowly moving his index finger across his neck. They stopped their throwing, but sticked to insults nonetheless. Even when intimidated, dogs will keep on barking.

The Trambletons were up to more of their shenanigans. 1 member of Kieran´s attack group had to be carried out, his ankle sprained in the wrong direction,  with cheering from the St Vincent crowd that had come to support their team. All of the players were filled up with bruises and the sort, starting to feel the teardown of the constant tug-of-war making their attacks more sluggish and predictable for the Trambletons. By the end of the 1st half, 3-nil was glowing from the scoreboard and both teams went to their respective lockers.

The team was a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Everyone was still gasping for air, except Czesch, who was getting pieces of glass stuck out of his head, reassuring the medic that he would still play. Kieran called for all of them to listen.

“Alright, I know things are going to shit, but we expected as much! We didn’t come here knowing they´d play fair! We are still set on powering through them, and that´s what we´ll do!”

That didn’t seem to do it. One of the players, Charlie, threw a bottle of water in frustration.

“You are delusional, Kieran! We need to score 4 more to make it worth it… fuck´s sake, look at us!”

“It´s impossible… there´s no bloody way we´ll make it through that!”

“Yeah, I agree… sorry, mate. There are certain things that just can’t happen… we should just give it to them, it´s impossible to win.”

Morale was about to drop to bottom levels in a second and Kieran knew it, but he didn’t know how to raise it back up. They were right. They had already pulled 3 in one sitting, but 4 more goals in their state would be ludicrous to think about… maybe it was time to-

“And what do you people know about the impossible?”

It was Czesch, a determined look on his eyes. Everyone was looking at him, wondering what he was on about.

“Mate, you can´t expect us to win this. We have given it our best, and our chances don´t look any better than at the start.”

He got up and got between them, relieving the pressure from Kieran so that he could find something to help them out.

“I´m not expecting, Im giving you a bloody fact: We will win this one and we´ll make those inbred fucktards taste defeat.”

“We´ve already told you, it´s-!”

“Impossible, I heard it the first time… do you guys know what is really impossible? Me being alive, talking to you, telling you that you can win. Because, if I´m honest, I still find it hard to believe from time to time, but here I am!!”

Everyone turned their heads at that statement, with expectation of what Czesch was about to say. He took a deep breath, going back to remind those living in peace of what the rest of the world suffered.

“… When I was around 10, I was thrown at a prison back in the Czech Republic. For a week and a half, a bunch of men would come in, ask me questions and kick me around like I was a ball… I should have died there, it was impossible to get out in my state. But I found a way. I found a way and, right now, Im talking to you guys and telling you “We will win!”. So… don’t give me the excuse of the impossible, because that´s bullshit and you all know it!”

“But… how can-“

“Don’t concentrate on what may or may not be on our hands!! Concentrate on giving it your bloody best! There are no impossibles in this world, only men set on breaking the established! A thousand years ago we thought the idea of flying as ridiculous, a hundred, that men wouldn’t reach the moon and 20 years ago, that having a computer on your phone was science fiction…now, you are all saying we can´t win this… but what will we say, Kieran?”

He saw what the Kid was doing… he saw through the ruse, and yet… he got drawn in all the same.

“Yeah… Yeah!! Let us show those cockends how St Vincent breaks their little dream! Lads, there isn’t a second chance for this, so lets break their little victory dream in pieces!!”

That got the team riled up, as they began screaming and shouting out of their lungs to get their adrenaline rushing.

“Yeah!”

“Fuck it, it´s too soon to let these scrapes get the better of us! Lets do it!”

“As long as I keep the goal safe, I want you mad men to defy physics if you must to score! We are winning this match, and no one will stop us from making it happen!!!”

“Let´s go, Wolves! Let´s show them our fangs for real this time!!”

Czesch had almost forgotten. The name of the team, St Vincent´s Wolves… it was probably a cruel joke of destiny, having him play with the wolves… when he was one already. It was as Sabi had said, “A wolf isn’t lone for too long. He always finds a pack sooner or later.”

The Trambletons had expected a dejected attack, but were met with the same result as in the 1st period. 4-nil and the Wolves were starving for more, ready and able for another maddened rush. The Trambleton´s abuse only gave the Wolves even more of a reason to push forward. Czesch kept on stopping balls and getting kicked, but, even having a hard time staying concentrated and with bruises and open wounds around him, he still stopped everything from coming in.

Middle of the 2nd part, another Trambleton offence thwarted, only this time they had a penalty kick for a “fault” inside the area of attack. The crowd that had gathered were dissing the referee, who was trying his damn hardest for the game to look as fair as his pay could allow. Frank was the one who would take the shot, his confidence slowly turning to fear.

“You aren’t stopping this one, faggot. Luck isn’t going to save you this time.”

Czesch didn’t even bother to respond. He was too busy noticing how telegraphed his shot was going to be. Frank thought he was being clever by hitting the left side with his right foot. Only problem is he moved his leg picturing that motion. The shot went off and Czesch only had to throw himself to stop the ball on its tracks. Immediately after, he threw it to the mid field, helping Kieran score the 5th goal.

Time was running out and, in an amazing play by Donnie, the ball entered the net from a well timed headbutt. With the 6th goal in their pockets, they only needed a 7th one to take the game home… but things were going awry and quickly.

The Trambleton´s had managed to injure another 5 members of the team badly and, being limited to 3 player changes, this only left 8 men in the Wolves. If they lost another member, they would have to suspend the game due to lack of players. Luckily, the referee hadn’t been paid enough to overlook every foul, and 4 of Trambleton´s players were kicked in those actions, making the game an 8v10 situation, which was quite difficult to manage, but still doable.

Czesch was getting shots from every side and every shot he stopped on its tracks. The school crowd was roaring, the hooligans were shouting, the Wolves were about to drop from exhaustion, the Trambleton´s were feeling the pressure of their captain, only one goal was needed… and the clock was about to hit the end-game.

Czesch grabbed the last of the shots and looked at the clock. He knew there was only time for one last play. One last play to help fate decide whether they were on the right or not.  He let out a sigh and started to concentrate, his own words resonating within him… no, he wouldn’t lose. There were no more sounds. No hooligans shouting, not a crowd roaring, not an enemy captain insulting him, not even his own breathing. He remembered Bishop´s words…

“Tell your brain to stop concentrating on the sounds that don’t matter and tell it to focus on the things that do. That way, you´ll dance to your own music… and not a single fool will stop you!”

The first training exercise of the Dáz Prikhêna was the “Slithering Steps”, which was to set the basis of the movement during combat. As luck had it, dribbling a ball between your feet and stopping the opposition from catching it was a part of the exercise, imitating having a good and mobile center of balance, along with the ability to avoid losing it to whoever tried to fight him. Czesch had to move to their zone and try to get the ball in. It was their last hope.

He let the ball drop between his feet, provoking 5 of the Trambletons, including Frank, to rush towards him like maddened bulls. Czesch simply started dribbling the ball around, knowing how and where to be to avoid getting hit. His eyes were catching everything in his front and periphery, his ears discovering new threats approaching from the back  and his feet in constant motion, moving the ball around and heading towards their zone. He was in his tempo, one that not a single of the rival players could keep up with.

He had managed to cross past the midfield, the goal closer and closer. Just a little more, and he´d be in position to make a strike. He´d get a good shot and finally put the game to rest. He´d make word on his promise and avoid having to suffer through defeat like-

Suddenly, he felt something churning in his stomach. Someone had butted in and stuck his foot in there, not even trying to conceal it. The kick had been a powerful one, probably breaking a rib or two. Czesch coughed blood while lowering his head, as a second leg appeared out of nowhere, smashing his head against the ground. He fell, face down, against the still muddy field, legs stomping on him like a bunch of highschoolers stomping on bugs. He was about to pass out from pain until he heard the whistle.

He couldn’t feel his body… only pain, all around him and the sound of a prick laughing at his misery. It was just like… the cell he had mentioned… so long ago…

The Old Crone kept on having an infuriating sense of humor.

Annie shared the same feeling as most of the audience: Anger. Bucket loads of it. The amount of insults thrown at the Trambletons could probably fill up a book.

“I can´t believe this shit, did you see that?”

“Well, your friend sure lasted a lot, considering the amount of shit they put him through… but everyone has his limits.”

“Is he even alive? I cant see him moving at all…”

She leaned closer to get a better look, but could only spot the Wolves checking him and stopping the Trambletons from getting close.

“He probably passed out, girl, don’t worry about him… the problem now is that the game has to stop.”

She turned as fast as lighting, disbelief forming within her eyes.

“What? Why?”

“They are down to 7 players… probably 6, considering that one guy in the mid-left. If your buddy Czesch doesn’t get up, they´ll have to suspend the game for lack of players.”

“Are you kidding me!? You saw how bullshit the game has been to this point, and they´re one goal away from winning! They can´t just stop the game like that!”

“I´m afraid they can, gorgeous… that´s why I stopped working around shit like this.”

“I mean, look at the captain of the Trambletons! That bastard… is he laughing!? He´s fucking laughing at Czesch!!! The fucking nerve on that guy!”

She kicked the iron bar in front of her, along with every single hooligan around them.

“Watch your voice, sweet-cheeks… his father is sitting somewhere around here.”

“Well, his father is a complete asshole as well!”

“He is from the mob, so…”

A medic was sent to check on Czesch, and right as he arrived…

“Wait, did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Your friend, Czesch, he just- There he goes again!”

“He´s…punching the ground?”

“What the hell is he doing?”

“I get that he´s probably pretty pissed, but… I´m glad he´s still moving. They might still have a chance after all!! Go, Wolves!!”

She was enjoying herself in that game, even with all the commotion and foul play. It seemed the Wolves had the short stick, but they were extremely close to the end. She couldn’t help but wonder how it actually felt on the ground.

In essence… Czesch was pissed. Really, really pissed off.

There was a saying in Blue Sparrow when talking about Czesch´s division: “Whatever you do, never ever piss off the Kid”. Some people had learned that lesson the hard way and the people who knew Czesch best understood that when he´s really angry bad things start happening.

An angry Czesch was a danger for anyone foolish enough to want a death sentence. The pissed off variant was a danger to all of those in front of him, which didn’t bode well for any of the Trambletons. They were still laughing and mocking, so he believed it was due time to give them the surprise of their lives.

He got up from the floor with a jump, with every single person looking at his direction gasping at the impossible and cheering at the miraculous recovery. His face throughout the game of concentration was exchanged with a sickly grin of disbelief and those close to him could hear a soft, cackling laugh coming from his bowels. He hadn’t completely lost his bearings, but he was in a dangerous state.

He moved towards Kieran and the others, who were standing at the foul spot. It was too far for a direct kick in, so they had to settle for a high ball and the remote possibility of a kick inside the area. It was too risky at this point… pissed-off Czesch had other plans…

“Czesch!! How in the fuck are you-?”

“I´m… kicking this one, if you don’t mind.”

“Ummm… Czesch, I´m sure that Ollie can-“

The Kid shoved his hand into Kieran´s mouth, urging him to let him talk.

“Kieran, Kieran, shhh… lemme talk. You want to win this, right? Pull off the impossible?”

“Yeah… I do.”

The Kid moved to a side and kicked the air next to them in a wide arch.

“Then lemme kick the ball… I assure you, it´ll blow your socks off!”

“Czesch, you… are creeping me out a little here…”

“Doesn’t matter! What matters is showing that rich cunt what a real turnabout is like! Now, come on!!!! Get into position in case I fuck up!! That´s an order!!”

The Wolves got around their selected positions. The entire Trambleton team moved for an in-depth defence. It was impossible for the Wolves to properly get the ball in from within the area. But logic dictated that the distance was too long for a direct kick. If attempted, it would just end up in the hands of the keeper.

But Czesch was laughing to himself to stop the anger from pooling up. He couldn’t believe he was about to use one of them in a bloody football game. He´d pay for it dearly afterwards, but it was all worth it. Nate was right on that one, at least.

Czesch was about to use one of his curses, which were the gifts sent by the Old Crone to a bunch of children in the Czech Republic during the Civil War. Each curse was different in what it managed to accomplish and in how it punished the individual for its usage, and all of them acted so that she could laugh at the results, both for the users and the victims.

There were 3 types of curse recognized by Czesch´s old group during the war. In power and risk, they ranged from Blood and Oath to Will. Blood curses were set for the bloodthirsty, for those on the path of war to satisfy their sadistic needs. Oath curses were set for those who wanted to live through a promise or an oath of sorts. Will curses were for those who lived for the sake of it, no particular reason associated with it. Czesch was the only known person to be accursed by Will in the Czech Republic, which was quite a bummer on his case, giving him the reputation of being an oddball inside a group of freaks.

Each curse was composed of 3 parts: The type of curse, the power the curse provided and the forseen death of the user. Those 3 parts were repeated constantly in the accursed´s head, being a sort of code to live by. The power part was also an activation key of sorts, which let the accursed to use their powers when they wished. A whisper and some mental preparation could turn a seemingly innocent boy into a murderous lunatic.

The curses went from seeing through walls, slowing time, evading or consuming bullets to freezing people in place and creating man-eating shadows. Each curse was different, and the repercussions on the body and mind were massive. He had seen the results too many times, and the idea behind using them at all reminded him of hours upon hours of screams of pain and misery.

Czesch was different in the sense that the curse was more of a prophecy: “The first you´ll discover by blood and kin, the second will be shown by your one true friend, and the third will dawn on you as you clutch the last of your hopes as they disappear.” For now, the prophecy had rang true. His first curse had been the absorption of the others, fulfilling an essential requisite: The accursed had to be killed in view of Czesch and by someone other than him. If he did kill someone cursed then their power would vanish, and if they died out of view then the curse transpired to another being. Those were the rules established and they meant he had to hunt down and kill his companions after the war ended.

And now the Kid was about to use one of them to turn the game around. The curse of Jusuk, who had the power to shatter the strongest of fortifications with a single strike. Jusuk had been an older brother of sorts to him, and having to use his ability made him feel a little more comfortable, even if the reminder of the downside made him doubt for a second. Under his breath, he whispered the words…

“I ask for power and precision…Breaker of Walls, may my one strike ring true and hit its target.”

A wind gust formed, feeding him with raw energy that concentrated on his leg. Not only was he seeing where to hit the ball, he also knew how strong the kick needed to be to not force the ball to explode. His sole purpose in life now was forcing that ball inside the net.

The whistle blew and time seemed to stop for a second. He hopped on his left leg, prepping his right one for the strike. He made his way towards the ball like that, hopping on his left leg all the way. He could feel some of the Trambletons laughing at that. He knew he´d get the last laugh.

He hit the last step and immediately launched the ball into the air. The effect was perfect, the power introduced in the right amount. In a single second, the ball went from Czesch´s feet to the back of the net, without the goalkeeper being able to react in time.

Czesch fell to the ground face-up. He couldn’t feel his right leg, but he was laughing. He was howling with it way too much for a guy like him, an absurd amount. He couldn’t hear a single sound apart from his ragged breathing and cackling, until it all came back. The roar of both the Wolves and the crowd was an astounding one. The Wolves started throwing Czesch into the air, who was just as exalted as the guys throwing him. The Trambletons had to stop Frank from heading there and punching someone, and they left the field without saying a word.

The day was won… but Czesch had something painful left to do.

Annie couldn’t believe her eyes. He had done it… he had really managed to do it! The Wolves had won the match that had been in the minds of everyone at school as a loss from day one. They had beaten the Trambletons by playing fair against all of their cheating and backstabbing. And all had been thanks to that new kid from the Czech Republic and his insane endurance. Even Pete, who had remained unperturbed for most of the game, was now clapping and cheering along with everyone else.

“That was amazing! Even I have to agree, your friend sure is an awesome guy!”

“Yeah… he really is… still can´t believe he pulled through in the end!”

“After seeing this show, of course you can bring him to the crib! This guy would be a wonderful addition to the gang”

“Really!? Oh, thank you so much, sweetie! I knew you´d like him!”

“Well, I guess it’s time to go now… are you coming, Annie?”

She took a quick glance at the locker room, seeing a few of Kieran´s teammates coming out laughing at their luck.

“Errr… not yet, I… want to tell him the good news while he´s in a good mood.”

“Alright, suit yourself! You know where to find me, love!”

“Yeah… later, Pete!”

He had done it. Czesch had managed the impossible. How had he done such a feat? Was he a hidden soccer prodigy? Not likely. He said he had played before and that he had liked it, but that he wasn’t extraordinarily good at it. Then what had just happened? How in the world could she have been witness to something so ridiculous and true at the same time?

She had to talk to him. She wanted desperately to know how he had done it. She needed it, for reasons unknown to her, curiosity driving her forward. She waited in front of the dressing room, seeing people with bruises all over their bodies, smiling and laughing like nothing bad had happened to them. Kieran came out at last, limping out with a grin on his face.

“Oh, hey, Anna!”

“Kieran, congratulations on the win! That was an amazing game you guys put out there.”

“You have Czesch to thank for that! The guy is pure dynamite! I asked him if he wanted to join the team, but he said he has other stuff to do.”

“That´s a shame, he´s really good… speaking of, has he come out yet?”

“Nah, he´s the last guy in there, said he needed to massage his leg or something… well, after that kick, no wonder, hahaha!!... I-I´ll see you around, Anna.”

“Ok, Kieran… bye.”

He was the last one in there. There was no one else in the dressing room. She could probably head in and wait for him inside, but… it was the boys room. She didn’t want to enter like that, it would be wrong.

Then it started to rain outside. She threw caution to the wind and entered the room to not get wet for the time being. From what little she knew of him, she understood Czesch wouldn’t be perturbed by her presence.

Unbeknownst to her… the Kid was having a harder time in the aftermath than at the game proper. He had something on his hands that could threaten his life if he wasn’t careful , so he had waited for everyone to leave him alone to pull through with it.

Czesch was gasping for air inside the shower room. His right leg had started to turn black and he knew exactly how painful the cure for that was. He had a spiked metal rod on one hand and a ball of socks on his mouth. He was sitting down on the floor with his back against the wall, slowly feeling like he was losing more than just his leg.

He made a hole in the side of his leg with the rod and started pushing it inside it, his screams muffled by the ball. The pain was 10 times as much as one would initially expect from that. He was going through skin and muscle to try and reach the other side of the leg, which required quite a bit of force. His eyes started watering as he made the last ditch effort. Finally, the rod came out at the other side, making a sish kebab out of Czesch´s leg.

A black, oozing liquid started seeping out of the exit wound and Czesch started massaging his leg, forcing the liquid in the rest of the leg out towards the wound. Just moving the liquid felt like having boiling oil running through bare skin… an unbearable sort of pain. At some points, he thought that he was about to pass out, but apparently he was mentally stronger than that.

His leg started going back to its original color, but Czesch kept on rubbing his leg for 5  more minutes, making sure that all of the liquid was gone. That was Jusuk´s curse. Once he used it, the part of the body sacrificed to make the hit would slowly get eaten up unless the liquid in charge of the consumption was taken out of the body. Jusuk almost lost an arm because of it, but luckily Sabrina managed to save it by making precise cuts on it. Czesch remembered it as a very long evening… one that repeated itself over and over.

Czesch took out the rod with a groan of pain and immediately bandaged that area. He´d need to observe it for a couple of days, but his life wasn’t in danger anymore. He sighed in relief as he finished bandaging up, a giggle taking over him yet again.

He was extremely tired. The game had been straining already, but it had been nothing compared to saving his leg. He got up and turned on the shower, the water burning into his wounds like volcanic ash. This time he did almost lose consciousness, but he got a grip and kept on standing up.

He finished up and headed out of the shower room. The rest of the team had already left home, to recover most likely. They had even invited him to a victory party in the weekend. Czesch would definitely go, but not before making some calls to his operations.

Just as he left the shower room, he noticed that there was a person sitting down, checking his-wait, no, “her” phone, as if waiting for someone to show up. Czesch was about to open his mouth to speak to Annie, but he immediately noticed that he was, in fact, still naked from the shower, bandage sticking out just as much as his 3rd leg. He didn’t have any problem engaging in conversation while that, but Annie might find such an occurrence… distracting.

She turned her head to the shower room, only to see Czesch in his natural state. The red on that face equated to that of the Arizona desert on a hot day.

“I… This is… This is not what it looks like?”

Tired and hurt all over, it was time for Nate´s shenanigans to take over.

“… Didn´t you come here to take a peek?”

“Put on some clothes, for fucks sake!”

Czesch hurriedly put on some underpants and a set of shorts, chuckling at his own comment. He couldn’t help but be snarky after such an afternoon.

“I must admit… you are more buff than you look.”

“Really? I thought you would be looking a bit lower than that…”

She threw a towel his way, but failed by quite a margin.

“Oh, shut up! Came here all worried about you and you are being a moron!”

“Worried? What for?”

“Your leg… No, not that “leg”, you idiot! I can see your face right now! I mean… when you walked here, you were limping. I was… concerned.”

It was his time to reel back and feel weary. He wasn’t used to people being visually concerned for his well-being… Vivi was the one who did it most, and it still felt weird…

“Concerned? About me?... Thanks for… for worrying, I guess, but I´m alright! No cause for alarm around here!”

“Hmmm… what about that bandage on your leg?”

“What?”

“Bandage on the right leg. Saw it while you were… you know…”

He didn’t want to explain the whole “sish-kebab” procedure to her, so snark it was.

“… so you WERE looking down there!!”

“Urrgghh, you are insufferable sometimes!”

“Comes with the full package! Bandage is only temporary, nothing major.”

“Oh, OK… you…sure about that?”

He put up the cheeckiest smile he could find put his hands around his waist.

“110%!”

She chuckled at that one, more out of embarrassment than actual fun.

“If you plan on saying that again, try raising your thumb… that might make you look like even more of an idiot.”

“I´ll make sure to take note… so, you came here just to make sure I was alright? How romantic…”

“Hey, I´ll have you know that I came in here with my boyfriend and we saw the game together, OK? And he said that you are free to hang out with us if you want.”

That was a nice development. He had no idea Annie was keeping her word so quickly and effectively.

“What, with you and your friends?”

She looked to a side, a trickle of sweat running down her face.

“I… guess you could call them that…”

“Sounds good.”

She looked back at him, furrowed brow and hopeless smile in tow.

“… You are insanely quick on taking up offers. Anyone ever told you that?”

“Way too many people… Alright, let´s leave this place, it´s starting to smell of woman´s sweat in here. May get some of the boys the wrong idea.”

“Oh, I really hope they do, knowing that you came out last!”

They both left the dressing room, just as the rain began to stop.  While they made their way out of the school zone, someone was waiting for one of them… someone the Kid didn’t want to face so soon yet again.

“Hey, who do you think those guys are?”

“Urrgghh, really? They want to do this right now?”

“Those the Trambletons? Shit, looks like… 8 of them... and they look quite mad. Let´s go to the other-”

He began stretching his arms, much to Annie´s bewilderment.

“Bloody hell, they just cant fucking wait for a day after, ooohh no, siree! They have to search for a brawl right afterwards. Give me a break…”

“You- You are not seriously thinking about fighting them!?”

“Fighting? They aren’t here to fight, they are here to threaten, that´s for sure. The moment I start, they´ll chicken out.”

“Huh?”

“Just stand back and watch. I´ve been through this before.”

Being a kid in an army has quite a lot of pros, since certain people are more empathetic of your situation, but the cons are just as consecuential. The abuse of being a measly kid surrounded by grown-up men with a wish to kill, maim and destroy was definitely worse than any of the battles Czesch had been on. But, just by seeing the Trambleton´s attitude, he knew what sort of crowd he was dealing with.  That experience, plus a couple of manuals on controlling crowds, would definitely come in handy. Especially since Frank, the leader of that bunch, seemed to be leading.

“You made a terrible mistake by coming out last, asshole! Are you ready for the lesson?”

“Oh, I´m sorry, I was a bit too busy taking a piss on your team cohesion. Seriously, from my position, it just looked like you guys were actually chicken running around!”

“And you are mocking us!? Do you have any idea of the situation you are in, you bastard!? 8 to 1, and you think you´ve got it in you!?”

“I´m pretty sure I have it in me, but I don’t really see the reason to resolve this with violence… besides, the only one wanting to brawl in here is you, so…”

“What!? What the fuck are you talking about!?”

“Those lackeys behind you? They saw what I managed to do barely an hour ago… and I´m pretty sure that a couple of them were the guys who were kicking me while in the ground… They know that pissing me off is a really, really bad call.”

Their faces were like an open book. They were there, reluctantly, hoping that Czesch would try to resolve it peacefully or that their boss would pull out.

“That´s it! No one talks of my boys like that! Have a piece of me, you fucktard!”

Frank´s right jab connected with Czesch´s face, who feigned a strong hit, lowering his head as if he had been hit by a truck.

“Who is the top dog now, huh!? You want to mess with me now!?”

Czesch simply grabbed him by his shirt and raised his head, looking him eye-to-eye.

“Now, your lesson for the day: If you hit…”

Czesch moved his head downward, crashing into Frank´s forehead. There was an audible sound coming from it, and Frank started rolling in the ground, feeling as if his entire head had exploded. Czesch continued, unhampered by the strike… at least visually.

“… expect the world to hit back!... Jesus, your head is harder than it looks, gotta give you credit! Although, not as resistant to pain as I thought… Maybe if I-“

“HEY!! THAT´S MY BOY!! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!?!?”

A man had been watching the spectacle happen from afar, and now was walking towards them, furiously. Frank´s lackeys decided to run in all directions to evade whatever destructive punishment was about to befall Czesch, who was curious about the newcomer. Frank kept on rolling around, crying from the strength of the strike.

“Annie, you think that´s his dad?”

“Oh, shit… I think he is! Czesch, let’s leave while we still can!”

“What? Why?”

His lack of reaction only angered her even more.

“Wha- Are you daft or something!? That guy is with the mob, you understand!? The mob!”

“Hmmm… so?”

“So!? You have a bloody deathwish on you!?”

“You can leave if you want… but you´d be missing out, I tell you!”

“… How do you fucking function?”

The man finally stepped right in front of Czesch, not even checking if his son was hurt in any way. Annie had been smart enough to hide, but sticking close enough to be able to hear their conversation.

“You!! How dare you attack my son like that!?”

“Well, he did start it and fully deserved it after that shitty game”

“What!? You aren’t even going to beg!?”

“For what reason? I did what I had to do, nothing more, nothing less”

The man grabbed Czesch by the collar of his shirt, lifting him from the air with some difficulty. He didn’t look the part, but the Kid was around 150 pounds in weight… around 70 kilograms. Holding him up like that would surely tire the man out.

“I swear to god, lad, I´m going to crush every bone in your body after Im done with you.”

“Before you do that, try to teach your bloody kid how the world works! Otherwise, me hitting him wont be the worst of his problems!”

“You dare lecture me on how to raise my kid!? A damn teenager!?”

“Well, can´t say I´m lacking in experience… “

The mobster prepared a punch, but then lowered his fist, a sickly grin forming on his mouth.

“What is your surname!?”

“Travaly… Why do you want to know? Want an autograph?”

“So I can find your bloody parents and send them my regards, all thanks to you! I´ll make sure that whenever they wake up in the morning, they find out their car on fire and their house as cinders! And for every one of my attacks, I´ll give them the same message: Thank your kid for that! How´s that!? Are you still feeling cocky!?”

The Kid looked at the sky above him. There were still grey clouds rolling around, but a spot of blue sky could be seen from one of the holes between them. He sighed deeply,  ruining the mobster´s mood.

“… A bit too late for that, buddy…”

“Huh?”

Silence came. Czesch was not feeling too comfortable talking about his parents, even though it wasn’t such a touchy subject anymore. Still, he had the feeling he´d have to pull out his trump card to resolve this situation peacefully… he didn’t really know if it would still be effective in a town like Harville or if he´d get heat because of it, but it was better than fighting a mobster in his condition.

“… If you really want to find them, there is a small village about 20 kilometres west of Brno, in Czechia… although their graves weren’t dug properly, so their bodies must be quite mouldy by now.”

The mention of dead bodies didn’t seem to deter him. He probably killed people for a living… what were 2 more bodies to him other than manure?

“Well… that ain´t stopping me from breaking you in two!! Your parents were probably glad they got rid of scum like you, so this means they won´t be troubled if I have my way with you!!”

“… Alright, I think I´m done playing…”

Czesch sighed yet again, then inched closer and started whispering in the man´s ear, making sure that no one else would listen.

“Listen here… the name “Harrow” mean anything to you? It should. You look the age, so you must understand the implication behind it…”

“H-Harrow!? How do you know that-“

“Yeah, I´m his kid, only son he had… so unless you want some big fucking trouble to come your way soon in the form of Italian mobsters from all around the UK or Czech assassins, I suggest you take your kid and sod off before some “undesirables” do show up at your home one day.”

“Y-You are bluffing!! T-There´s no way you-“

“Grigori Antonov died in his locked room and no man entered… the madman who made the kill broke no locks and shot a bullet without a gun… now, where could I have heard that one?”

The man took the notice with the face of someone who has seen a ghost. Or survived a mortar shell. He helped his kid up and went on his way, sprinting as fast as his legs could allow. Such a sight almost made the Kid laugh.

Czesch sighed instead, adjusting his shirt again and grunting at the broken collar. He had been forced to use his trump card, one that still filled him with angst. One cannot choose his heritage, and Czesch certainly hadn’t. If he had, he certainly would have chosen something a bit more common and peaceful. Then again… he was glad they had raised him… at least, until their time came…

“Well, that was unnecessary… so, shall we go Annie?... Annie?”

Annie popped out of her hiding spot, looking like she had seen a ghost. She was thinking to herself, whispering something.

“Annie? Are you with me?”

“… your parents… they´re… oh god… oh, Czesch, I didn´t know… I… I-“

“Haha, come on, it isn´t that-“

“Had I know they were… I would… I wouldn’t have…”

She seemed quite shocked by that revelation. Wasn’t that town filled with fatherless children? Maybe no one close to her had those circumstances. Still, it was annoying to see her so distraught by an event that had happened so long ago.

“Stop it… there´s no need for that anymore. It´s all ancient history now, there´s no… no satisfaction in touching the wound anymore. Just a bit of a sting.”

“I-I´m sorry, I didn’t know… that was… I mean, when you said it, it looked like… like it didn’t bother you at all.”

“Oh, trust me, it did! The months afterwards I was sick to my stomach thinking about how fucked up that whole ordeal was! Then again… I was a little busy.”

“How come?”

“Nevermind, let´s just go.”

Czesch started walking, Annie right next to him, wondering whether to ask the question or not. The fact that he was aware that she wanted to ask something meant that this “vacation” might have had some positive results already.

“… Go ahead and ask, as long as it has nothing to do with-

“How did you tell him off? The Trambleton head, I mean.”

He froze for a second, looking at her with second thoughts.

“Y-You really want to know?”

“Uuhh, Yeah? I was right there, dimwit, of course I want to know! You whispered something to his ear and then he simply ran… what did you say to scare him? It might be useful!”

“I… ummm… how can I put this in a civil way…”

“And make it convincing, otherwise I´ll just think you are talking shit.”

Czesch had to admit, she had a point. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to tell her. The secret wasn’t as important as his current job was… at least he thought of it that way. Who he was in his past only served as a grim reminder of the shadow of a once great man… maybe “great” wasn’t the proper word… more like “relentless” and “hard to kill”.

“… You promise you won’t tell anyone? I´m dead serious with this, it is that important.”

“I promise… so, what was it?”

“… Harrow…”

She listened to the word as if he´d just spoken Chinese.

“What does that mean?”

“Look, my… my real surname isn’t “Travaly”… it´s really Harrow…”

She gave it some thought, finally giving up and shaking her head.

“… That doesn’t ring any bells… care to elaborate?”

He sighed again, dusting off the section in his mind where he kept all the information regarding his heritage. He had spent the last year not having to explain that topic to anyone, but it seemed he´d have to set the timer back to zero yet again.

“Fine… my dad was Jack Harrow, a sort of “fixer” working with the Italian mob here in England. He was really damn good at his job and there came a point where he was wanted in the entirety of the UK… even the Interpol had some people on him. Then there was my mother, Lenna, an assassin from the International Syndicate of Assassins, born in the Czech Republic and sent to England for contractual work. They both met, got attached and were about to have me in country, were it not for an accident involving some russians… moved to my mother´s homeland, which turned out to be a horrible idea… so, there you have it… I´m son to a fixer and an assassin… and my surname still carries some weight around the underworld, reason enough for me not wanting to use it… happy with that explanation?”

Maybe he had sounded quite insensitive, but it got the desired effect on her. She looked at the empty space in front of her, her walk cycle becoming slower and slower. Then, out of nowhere, she stopped, blinked furiously, clicked her tongue and linked up with him.

“That sounds… like a tall tale… but it´s convincing enough coming from you.”

“Yeah… I didn’t want to start things with everyone by saying “Hey, I´m the son of two professional killers!”, because that certainly doesn’t get you many friends.”

“Well, I think that sounds awesome!”

“Y-You think? What is so awesome about it?”

“Well, they must have had a ton of stories about their contracts and shenanigans like that! And you don’t look particularly messed up, so they must have raised you well enough!”

“… Well enough to survive a war? For sure.”

“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that… must have been hard without them.”

“I did find someone who helped me out in the long run, but it was hard trusting others… after all, I was there when they were shot down. A bit too hard for a kid, if you-“

“Y-y-you… saw them… getting killed!?”

Whatever attempt he had to calm her nerves was completely demolished when he mentioned that little known fact about his life.

“- ask… me…yup, saw the whole thing… pretty messed up, too. Could barely say a word the first week after the fact, but I have some rotten luck on me, so I lasted through that whole mess and lived to tell the tale.”

“… Ok, I take away the “you not being messed up” thing…”

He stopped on his tracks, turning around to face her with a smile unbecoming of him. He was so used of people calling him out on his demented nature that it became a compliment more so than an insult.

“As if there is anything odd about that”

Curiosity killed the cat. That is one saying that has transcended through language and time, explaining in a simple manner how the thirst for knowledge has brought the greatest down to their knees. Trying to discover the unknown may fill a void that is in every human, but at times knowledge becomes hard to bear.

Right next to her, Annie could see a man who knew a lot about things she had no idea about and, in a sense, he probably knew little to nothing about Annie´s world. It was kind of ironic, that two people like them had managed to meet up. She was someone who had never been into any traumatic situation. Her life had been pretty comfortable for as long as she could remember, and the only thing driving her to desperation was her view of the world around her, that deep void inside herself.

And then came Czesch, someone who was fundamentally broken by the worst humanity had to offer at infancy, brought through a literal hellscape… and who still managed to retain a smile, something Annie struggled with every day.

Do or say something enough times and it´ll become true, that´s another thing a lot of people agree with. Was that the reason Czesch smiled all of the time? Because he thought that there would be some way to ease his pain by keeping it like a mask? Because he had nothing left to do?

The questions kept on piling up and, like the cat, Annie was way too curious about that whole ordeal to stop. She had to know about him, to get a feel of the pain deep inside him, to actually understand how real pain worked. Then maybe… maybe she could find some light in the world. Maybe everything would stop being so grey and dull.

“So, what are your friends like?”

His change of topic brought her back to reality. They had spent 10 minutes walking side by side without saying another word, and only now did Czesch decide to spark some conversation.

“Huh? My friends?”

“You told me I could go out with you guys… you, your boyfriend and others.”

“Oh, right…. The gang.”

“The gang? That´s how you call them?”

“Well… we are a gang, after all. No other way to call it.”

“You kidding? An actual gang!?”

“The Bloody Bastards, we call ourselves…”

The Kid tried to suppres a snort to no avail, much to Annie´s embarrassment.

“Sounds fancy… really fancy.”

“I know, it wasn’t my pick.”

“Well, at least you got a proper name… does “The Cub Pack” sound menacing enough to you?”

“Sounds like the name an adult would pick for a bunch of kids.”

“Yeah, guessed as much…”

They walked a few more metres, with Annie slowly realizing that the Kid was surprisingly OK with her relationship with a gang.

“… You aren´t mad about me wanting to get you in a gang? ”

“Not really. As I´ve said, got ties to the lowest of the low. Will probably feel right at home…”

A few more feet. This time, Annie had the urge to ask about a topic she knew fully well was touchy… yet it could help her come to terms with a struggle of her own.

“Hmmm… do you remember how your dad was? I know it´s a bit out of the blue, but…I don´t get along with my old man that much, and seeing how…”

“Don´t worry, I get it! I don´t mind at all, might refresh my memory and everything!”

“That´s… good, I guess.”

“He was a rogue. Adamant, brutish, sarcastic, egocentric, pedantic at times… but I know for a fact he´d give his life for someone who needs help… when you think about it, he went out the way he had always wanted: Throwing everything for someone else who still had a road to walk.”

“And your mom? What was she like?”

“She was… beautiful. Beautiful and deadly, but with a great heart… I guess that she was looking for something else apart from the killing and Dad managed to show him what life really was like. At times, it actually felt like she was a fish out of water, and Dad and me were like bowls of water, giving her comfort from a world that she hadn’t been brought into… I liked her best of the two, but I never told her…”

“… Do you want to change the topic or-?”

“It´s OK! I´m already over all that! Ask away!”

“Oh… O-OK…”

They spent the rest of the way talking about Czesch´s family and his childhood before the war. She was surprised by both the story and the fact that he was telling it without any issue at all, especially considering how fucked up the aftermath of it all must have been. Annie wasn’t really sure about how to take it all in. Then the Kid finished his story with this remark:

“In the end, I´m… kind of glad things ended up like this.”

She stopped in her tracks, unable to comprehend the logic behind that statement.

“W-What!? How could… How can you say that!?”

“Well, my parents managed to move to the Czech Republic without issue, thanks to my mother´s connections. We had a comfortable life, but… there was a price for it.”

“… How much was it? I mean, your mom had ties there, so-“

“I was the price, Annie. We would get a life only if I was raised into an assassin for the future.”

The thought of him being an assassin… was not as far off as she had thought. The guy was strong, fast and definitely had a mind capable of memorization and quick problem solving. If anyone could manage to kill someone when properly trained, it could very well be him.

“Oh… that´s… definitely not cheap… why would they agree to that?”

“Because there were no other options. And when you are desperate, you take the best shot you got… even if you know it´ll misfire in your face the moment you pull the trigger…”

“That must have been horrible.”

“The training? No, they were quite forgiving with that.”

“No, I mean… knowing that you have to be something you may or may not like in the future. Having your life chosen for you.”

She saw Czesch´s eyes turning dark for a moment, then regaining their colour with a quick wink. It was hard to guess what thought he had been consumed by, but he was back to his cheerful persona.

“That´s why I’m glad in a way that things turned out like this. If nothing had happened, I´d probably be killing people around Prague, whether I liked it or not. I would probably never have stepped England or a school… or met with people like you.”

“Silver lining, huh?”

“Best thing I can do!”

They coming close to the end of their walk together, and Annie had one final question that needed answering before they went any further. She understood she had no right, but… it was better now than never.

“… so… have you done it?”

“Hmm? What?”

“Killing… ending someone´s life. With your family being who they were and surviving through a war… it´s hard to not imagine you doing it.”

“… Do I look like I have?”

“It´s kind of hard not to reach that conclusion… sorry if it bothers you.”

“It´s alright…  better be upfront with it than save it for later.”

They had already reached Czesch´s building. He let out a sigh, as if he had had to answer that question a million times… like it was akin to him breathing or eating.

“It´s something I wouldn’t want anyone doing for a living.”

“…What kind of answer is that?”

“I´ll let you figure that out! See you tomorrow!”

“Wait… before you go…”

“Hmm?”

“Can I have your number? Just so I can keep in contact with you. You are not hard to track, but calling you will save a lot of time.”

“Shit, I almost forgot you didn’t have it! Here, it´s…”

After that, they both went their separate ways, Annie still wondering what sort of person the guy she had just given her number was. Was he crazy? A sociopath? A bloodthirsty killer? Was all of his smiling a façade to hide away his cruel nature? It didn’t look like it. It didn’t seem like that at all. Annie was just witnessing a man trying to live with a fucked up past, that was all there was to it.

She was starting to feel down again… she´d have to take her medicine soon…

Next Chapter: Chapter II: Old Habits Die Hard