Four hours passed before Farah even suggested that it might already be okay to leave. Four hours were wasted sitting around the swimming pool - silent, tense, and listening for the tiniest hints of a wall whack or crackling electricity. Alas, no whacks or cracks of any sort came, which was the very thing driving most of them stir crazy as opposed to any immediate danger. The slow boil of expected mayhem mixed in equal proportions with a lot of awkward attempts to start a conversation and just a hint of existential dread. To Farah in particular, it felt a lot like Thanksgiving dinner with family.

Indeed, what motivated her in the end to leave the wretched basement wasn’t so much a sense of safety or courage as an intense desire to just not be waiting anymore. If the monster was on the other end, she would rather face it than spend another minute huddled together in the dark. And Farah made that step, and was the one to discover a total absence of any monsters on the other end of the door.

They all thought it would make them feel better.

It did not.

Now in late afternoon, the house was deceptively tranquil and tangibly empty, far too big even for a decent company of people. It was hard to believe something so strange could happen in a place so painfully normal. They wanted to talk to each other about it, address the discrepancy and figure out which parts of their memories matched up, but couldn’t quite force themselves. They had, after all, managed to not bring it up for this long. So why even bother?

It wasn’t all gloom and dread anyway. Currently, Dirk Gently was actually quite bored. His meandering exploration of the house had so far took him to a plethora of tremendously uninteresting rooms and he was losing hope of ever finding anything to pique his curiosity. Another turn lead him into an enormous art gallery, and he inspected a few of the paintings with limited attention.

Dirk had never been a big fan of fine arts on account of having bizarre tastes that he couldn’t even articulate properly. For example, the one painting he really quite enjoyed in the gallery turned out in fact to be a children’s drawing that had been covered up by wallpaper and later uncovered. It depicted a family of rainbow coloured octopuses, some of which were wearing hats. “Kevin, age 7,” it proclaimed on the bottom. Dirk took a picture of it on his phone and moved on.

Next, the house tour brought Dirk to three different bathrooms, a room with a pool table, and a mini-bakery inside of the enormous kitchen. The bakery is where he realized that he hadn’t eaten anything since morning, so by the time he had found the tiny office, he had one apple stuffed into the pocket of his jacket and was biting into another.

The tiny office in question resided at the end of a particularly twisty corridor, hidden away from sight deep into the mansion. It gave the impression of a room that was used rarely if ever, but visited often, as it was almost artificially clean but bore no signs of active habitation or use. It contained a single desk with a luxurious chair, two small cabinets filled with books, and a dead fireplace.

On the desk were displayed a variety of photographs, mostly of a man always wearing the same smart suit, expressing deep contempt for the person taking the photograph for having the nerve to distract him from incredibly urgent business. On earlier photographs, the man was seen next to a plump, rosy-cheeked woman, and a young boy with scraped knees and a bright smile.

Then, gradually, the man on the photos grew older and even sterner in his expression, while the boy grew up, and the woman disappeared entirely. The photograph in the center was the only one where the entire family looked happy, enjoying a summer evening outside. On it, a boy’s hand drew an octopus in a cowboy hat. Dirk looked at it for longer then the others, smiling; then snapped a picture of it on his phone and moved on.

Eventually, through Brownian motion of molecules in his legs, Dirk ended up in a vast living room that resembled a cathedral more than it did a place for watching TV and displaying the decorations deemed not special enough for the dining room. Indeed, this one consisted mostly of empty space, with an enormous sofa facing the TV on the wall. The TV was on; the sofa occupied. Dirk walked slowly across the polished floor and, without saying a word, took a seat half a meter away from Todd.

“I think his cable has every single channel on Earth,” Todd commented, his finger automatically switching channels on the remote. “Cause I’ve started switching half an hour ago and it just keeps going.”

“They might be looping,” Dirk suggested.

“I think,” Todd continued, ignoring the interruption, “that he’s getting channels from every country. Or at least from every country that has TV channels. And maybe from some that don’t. Like, look at this.” He stopped at a random channel and left it on for a minute. On the screen, two women sat opposite each other in a studio, discussing something in warm, friendly tones. “What language is this even?” Todd asked. “Ukrainian?”

“Serbian, actually” Dirk replied without turning his head, all intonation gone from his voice.

“What are you, an expert on Slavic languages?” Todd smirked, then, glancing sideways, realized that Dirk was staring unblinking at the screen, his face motionless and stern.

“I know cause that’s my native language,” Dirk explained in the same monotonous voice. “They’re discussing a book. I think that woman wrote it.”

“Serbian?” Todd repeated, frowning. “But you’re…”

“I grew up in Britain,” he replied ahead of the question, “I was too young to properly remember Serbia. But my parents are from there. Were,” he corrected himself. “And it’s fine, Todd. You look like you’ve seen a ghost and I’m the only one allowed to look like that in this current interaction we’re having.” With that, he took the remote from Todd’s hand and muted the sound.

“You never talk about… anything, to be honest,” Todd mused out loud. “I mean, you’re constantly talking about everything, but not about yourself, or what happened to you before we met. Is that because it’s difficult for you?”

“It’s because none of you ever ask, really,” Dirk shrugged. “Not that I have any complaints to file about that.”

“But I talk to you non-stop about college and Amanda and my high school friends and…” Todd paused. “Damn, sorry, Dirk, I never thought about it like this, that you…”

“I’m fine,” Dirk said with the tone and expression far too intense to convince anyone of the veracity of his words. “All that stuff was ages ago! I don’t need it, I have you and Farah and the agency and plenty of new cases to think about. You know, I think you were spot on about Kevin being connected.”

“You’re changing the topic.”

“No, Todd, I have already changed the topic. Perfect tense. The action is complete. Now either stay with this already firmly established topic or suggest one of your own.”

“Hey,” Todd interrupted, turning towards him and, completely on autopilot, on pure instinct, placing his hand next to Dirk’s. “You can talk about your childhood, if you want. We’re stuck here anyway and there’s no one here. Might as well. You don’t have to though,” he added quickly, “if it’s too painful.”

“It’s not painful,” Dirk replied. “That’s the issue. It’s not, well, anything, as you’ve said. My memory’s strange. I have these,” he gesticulated, searching for a word, “bits and pieces, just shreds of memories, but they’re all very vague. I know all the facts.

"Moved to UK when I was four, grew up in Yorkshire, went to school in Leads… I remember the names, the addresses, the phone numbers… but not the childhood.” He paused and licked his lips, Todd’s eyes fixed on him. “Now mind you, Black Wing, that I remember very well and have no desire to discuss, but that wasn’t childhood, that was after.”

“How old were you?” Todd asked. “When they took you?”

“Nine.”

“Really?”

“I wasn’t the youngest there, but they didn’t let me see them much.”

“And after Black Wing?”

“Went back to England,” Dirk said. “Studied in Cambridge. Almost graduated, but there were, well, let’s call them complications I was mildly responsible for. Tried to be a private detective there, with intermittent success. Then got contacted by the CIA again, but that time on my own terms. Went to the US again. Worked some cases for them. Climbed into your window. And you were mostly around for the rest of it.”

“I keep forgetting,” Todd smiled, “that you were already insane before me…”

“Very rude!” Dirk laughed.

“No, seriously,” Todd laughed back, “my life was very boring before I met you. Stressful, hectic, but normal. And yours really wasn’t.”

“Not since I was a tiny baby.” Dirk nodded. “My mother called me a weirdness magnet. I used to get in trouble every week at school because every incident and rumor could be traced back to me.” He paused, expression somewhat grimmer again. “My mum, she… I think she was a bit afraid of me.”

“I wouldn’t have made it alive to adulthood with that power.” Todd chuckled, ignoring the last comment - for Dirk’s and his own sake.

“I almost didn’t actually,” Dirk replied, “on several occasions. But, um, right.” His hand moved, unthinking, almost subconsciously, towards Todd’s. “I can tell you, maybe, at some point. If you want.”

Dirk’s hand was now a few atomic lengths away from Todd’s and there was nothing Todd wanted more than to reach out and take it at last - and yet some sort of mystical power stopped him at the last moment.

“Let’s see what else is on that TV,” Todd suggested, as his hand changed places and rested on the remote. “Maybe there are some nice music channels.”

*

On the other side of the mansion, Farah dropped heavily into an armchair, feeling like she had been awake for twenty seven consecutive days and had taken an exam, moved apartments and worked a full shift at a restaurant on every single one of those days. Her current mode of life was a perpetual cycle of alert and resolution. Every ten minutes on the dot, Kevin would call for her, panicking, and every ten minutes she would either rush for his rescue, or check the windows with a gun in her hands, or patrol the corridors on account of suspicious activity.

This lifestyle was not sustainable, Farah quickly realized. And thinking about the fact that this would likely to go on for an indefinite amount of time made her long for a nice relaxing holiday mining for coal in Wales, far away from the god forsaken mansion. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then…

“This all might be awfully hard to handle all on your own.”

Farah barley had the strength to look up. When she did, she discovered professor Daly, who had entered the room and taken a seat near her, in a similarly puffy and luxurious armchair.

“Mint?” he suggested. She took one and thanked him.

“I’m not all on my own,” Farah said, “it’s just that no one else can do specifically this job. Dirk is great at accidentally navigating out of a maze or finding clues he did not know were clues or actually solving the case. And Todd is great in a real crisis, you know, dealing with real problems and fighting actual enemies. Not so good at, I don’t know. Guarding.”

“Mr Gently was indeed guarding me,” professor Daly chuckled, “but I believe it was an honorary position more than anything. Your client is a different story.”

“My, khm, client,” Farah responded, lips stiff, “is incapable of telling apart a falling spec of dust from an armed robber. And I am this close to shooting at dust to get him to shut up.”

“But these are extraordinary events,” Roger interrupted. “I am a skeptic myself but being a skeptic does not mean denying the obvious when it is staring you in the face. We are dealing with either extremely advanced technology or some such, or a case of elaborate setup and manipulation. Both me and that Kevin of yours.”

Farah sighed, considering whether to speak up.

“When we were running away,” she said, bouncing her leg nervously, “and that… thing, reached for us… I think it was specifically reaching for Kevin. Like, they were on their way to you, they wanted you - but they also wanted Kevin.”

“Quite bizarre.” Professor nodded. “It’s like us both were swept up in the same storm.”

“I should have asked Kevin a lot of things, and a long time ago,” Farah said. “Actually, I should just do it now. It’s been…” she glanced at her watch, expecting ten minutes exactly to have passed. “God, it’s been almost an hour!” she exclaimed. “Did I fall asleep sitting?!”

“You were napping.” Roger shrugged. “I did not want to disturb you.”

“Oh shit!” Farah cursed, jumping out of the arm chair at once. “I have to find him!”

And she did find him eventually, after several horrible, horrible hours spent frantically searching the entire mansion and its premises.

Farah found Kevin outside, a few houses away, lying face down in the grass next to the road. He had no signs of damage, was barely breathing, and completely unresponsive.

*

Friedkin did not plan to spend that day in front of his universe TV. In fact, that day had been set aside for a major cleanup of his bookshelves since three imaginary weeks ago, but alas, one of the Friedkin’s got sucked into a brother Strugatski novel, and the whole task had been abandoned forty minutes after it started. A great variety - stacks upon stacks - of books of all shapes and sizes now rested on the floor all around the floor-less, roofless, wall-less room. And Friedkins sat on their respective chairs, eating imaginary but nevertheless delicious fresh strawberries; and watched the TV.

“You’ve been switching channels for ages,” one of the Friedkins complained to the remote-wielder. “Like, settle on one already!”

“I’m searching the thing,” Friedkin replied.

“Which thing?”

“Ugh, you know… the thing!”

Luckily this was exactly the moment Friedkin finally clicked on the thing, or he would have to go through the torturous exercise of trying to remember a word that is dancing just on the tip of your tongue - and five times over, since that is how many Friedkins were currently present in the room.

“Ah, that thing!” Friedkin beamed.

On the screen, two figures dressed in gleaming black sat opposite each other in a profoundly white room. One was helping the other carefully remove parts of their suit, including a section that was smoking, torn apart by something.

“And you were saying the costumes are overkill,” the one helping said, extracting something from the thick fabric and dropping it on the floor. It made a loud metallic sound, like a coin hitting the ground.

“I said the costumes were overkill for the electric shells,” the other replied, removing their helmet. “They are still pretty good against bullets.”

“We’ve lost them. Both.”

“We’ll find them both.”

“Time’s running out.”

“Yes, well. I work great under pressure.” They paused, and Friedkin felt like they stared exactly into his soul through the screen of the universe TV. “Get us new costumes. We’re going back for him. Immediately.”

“They really mean business,” Friedkin nodded thoughtfully at the screen. “I hate this,” he confessed to other Friedkins. “It’s, like, it’s really giving me anxiety. Cause if it worked on that rich dude…” he frowned. “What’s gonna happen to Dirk?”