There’s a knock at the front door. Two insistent wraps on the fading wood.

Who would be out there? No one should be here knocking on the door.

I’m frozen behind the kitchen table looking over it at the front door. Has Radovan come around for some reason? Maybe I shouldn’t open the door then.

But why? Why would he be here?

What other reasons could there be for a knock at the door?

The money mom needs or maybe the debt she’s in? That’s a possibility.

Reason to open the door and also reason to ignore it.

There’s a more insistent knock on the door this time. Maybe it’s about the money mom needs and not Radovan. I’ll have to open it to find out more. Still have no idea why she needs money.

I step towards the door.

Wait. What about that note from yesterday? Someone is coming to look for a room to rent.

Now I want to open the door, just to chase whoever it is away so they don’t come back. I could do that, chase them away. I want to do that.

Mind made, I try to slowly and silently grab the keys and pace over. Maybe Kostas will do me a favour and grunt, if it’s him.

A complete silence hangs outside the front door.

With one hand I insert the key and open the door a crack.

“Aleks!” Lera’s voice bursts forth.

“Hi, Lera.” I say not really able to keep the surprise from my voice.

I hadn’t even considered Lera. Well, she does hardly ever come visit. I think the last time she came was a year ago, the commemoration for dad’s death.

Is that today, have I forgotten about it?

No. It’s still a few months away.

Stepping back, I open the door.

Lera’s giddy excitement quickly drains away as her eyes dart for other places to look besides my arm in a sling.

My arm! My fucking broken arm! I forgot all about it. Of course that would freak Lera out. She was the one telling me Radovan would break my arm. Now instead of looking innocent, as though Radovan was mistaken or my explanation was true, I look as guilty as being caught red handed. No wonder she was happy seeing me the other day outside the cafe. I had no marks on me of Radovan’s judgment.

Lera’s eyes keep slipping off me, finding other things to be more interested in like the door frame of the house she had lived in for at least sixteen years.

“This-” I start.

Lera instantly cuts me off like I wasn’t speaking. “Remember I said you and mom should ask me for help?” She says rapidly. “I realised I hadn’t actually helped after that.”

She manages to stop staring at the passage behind me and holds out a brown paper bag with her violet nails. “I know you and mom need it.”

I catch her stink drifting into the house. I’m sure she hasn’t washed since she was last here. I think I can see dead skin powdering her one cheek from where she must have slept on her pillow and disturbed it.

Money? Is she giving me money to help with mom’s money problem?

The whole selling organs thing has been pushed to the back of my mind since I was jumped in the back-road more or less. Too many other insistent problems and stimulations vying for my attention like pain, failure, and running into some kind of Ambit escaping creature. I still need to figure out what mom’s money problem is about.

“Take it.” She insists, moving the bag closer to me.

Should I take it? On the one hand I don’t know what I’ll do with her money. I plan on killing everyone in Borshkis’s organ shop when I become a little less lethargic after using my greater power. On the other hand it kind of feels like I’ll be taking Lera’s money in bad faith if I do accept it. I don’t know how much it will help, I don’t know what mom’s going to use it for. For all Lera’s kindness she’ll have no money saved up and her act might not have changed anything for the better.

Actually, taking all of Lera’s money might be for the best. Lowers the chances she’ll splurge on drugs. I could even use it as a fund to cover her costs when the time comes to detox and manage her withdrawals.

No, that's not right. I can use Radovan’s money for all that. I’ll keep hers until she’s no longer an addict.

I grab the brown paper bag and Lera steps inside to hug me. I guess she misses me, broken arm or not.

“I also got you some food.” She says quietly.

I hug her back but it’s nauseating with her smell.

Lera feels small and bony. Her clothes seem loose and there’s been no improvement in her pallor. Taking whatever savings she has must be the best thing to do.

Eventually I pull away because of the smell.

Lera steps back and bends down to pick up a white plastic bag. She shoves it into my hands as well.

The bag is warm. Must be the food.

“You still have that habit when you blink your eyes, Aleks. Froggy blinks.” She teases. “I thought mom managed to fix that.”

I shift uncomfortably in the doorway.

“Do you want to come in for lunch? You can take-”

Lera interrupts me again before I can say shower.

“I’m busy today.” She says quickly before stepping back. “Only have time to drop the money off.” She finishes awkwardly.

With a few quick steps back she retreats to the road and waves.

“I’ll try visit more often, Aleks.” She waves once more before starting to walk up the compressed gravel road.

“Bye.”

She’s out of sight in under ten seconds.

That’s a first. Lera never visits.

Looking out of the doorway, it feels like it could rain tonight. Overcast sky, chill wind and the air has that smell of kicking up dust.

I hope it holds off until later. Trying to descend down the shortwave tower in the rain would be far too difficult.

I put the bags down on the counter and lock the front door.

Lera came as quickly as she left I guess.

The money I take straight to my room and hide it under my bed. I’ll hold onto Lera’s money unless mom asks about it. Maybe put it down in the store room in the tunnels the next time I go down there.

It is lunch time so I’ll see what Lera got me. Must be food from the cafe.

Two polystyrene containers packed with Pilaf, boiled eggs, quark pancakes, zeppelins, a few cutlets and sausages. There’s easily enough for two. I think she meant to come eat lunch with me.

Until she saw my broken arm.

Mom can have the other when she comes home then.

I get myself a cup of water and start eating.

This food is wasted on me. I can’t appreciate whatever it’s meant to taste like. Eating from tins would be no different.

Maybe this is more nutritious? Yes, that sounds right.

But it isn’t… Pleasurable. The main reason people spend money on food from what I can tell.

I push the food away half finished as irritation strikes me.

Mom’s debt.

After Lera makes an out of character visit to the house, I’m so surprised and wrapped up in my broken arm scaring her away that I forget to ask her about one of my biggest problems.

Where is Borshki’s… dentistry? When is mom’s appointment? The most important question, why does mom need the money? I could have asked. It would have been so easy. I better start figuring this out before it’s too late. I think it’s time to snoop around mom’s room.

Not knowing exactly when she has her appointment booked for - the organ operation - is unnerving, but I’m sure she would tell me something about taking a few days off. She would need to rest up after having a part of herself cut away. Mom would make a big deal out of the time off with school still being canceled and want to do stuff together. Make some food or take care of the poor garden, look at the precious few photos she has of her family from the country, tell stories and talk about her and dad’s childhood,

I push her room’s door open.

Her room. Not their room, not my parents room.

What a telling little detail to describe the changes this room has gone through over the years. Dad’s clothes; moved to the basement. Dad’s belongings; moved to the basement. Their double bed; vanished overnight years ago. The two bedside tables; one moved down into the basement.

It really is mom’s room now. Nothing of dad’s remains. She bought a single bed and a throw rug for the wooden floor. Changed the curtains to a pink and white floral granny pattern. Even her sheets were new. The old double bed sheets are either packed away somewhere or were also disappeared.

I guess any reminder is too painful for her. In all the years since dad died she’s only gone down into the basement, past the brine barrels near the steps, once.

The places to look for possible information on her organ selling, or money problems, number three. Her bedside table, her cupboard and her handbag.

Her bedside table has a small white towel covering the surface in a diamond shape as it pretends to be a miniature table cloth. There isn’t anything of interest on it, a toilet roll, a book she must have borrowed from a friend - Tales of Belkin; Pushkin - and an old lamp missing its shade.

I pull the draw open.

An assortment of papers that have been forced into the drawer leaving them slightly crumpled, a tube of ointment, another book, pens, pencils and loose string. I shut the draw and open the tiny cupboard beneath it. A tightly wrapped plastic bag, a small leather pouch or handbag, a collection of coloured papers with dates on their heading attempting to chronologically sort correspondence with her family in the country.

The small bedside cupboard door slams shut. I don’t like thinking about my mom having her organs cut out of her.

Taking a breath, I turn to her cupboard.

Clothes, unsurprisingly. I dig into the shelves and find batteries, belts and an old children's book. Stored at the bottom are cardboard boxes with warmer clothes in for the winter and to the side is a section for hangars with her coats, scarfs and a few dresses.

I thought I would find more than this.

Where else would she keep things in the house? The bathroom cupboard? I checked it when looking for possible materials to use for my homemade splint.

This is a bust. Everything must be in her handbag.

I’ve got time before her appointment. I feel uneasy about it, but rationally, I know I still have time if she hasn’t mentioned taking days off work.

I almost feel like when Lera told me the story all over again. Somehow too hot in the cool house. Skin prickling and uncomfortable in my clothes.

Thinking about mom selling her organs is flaring my anger. I so badly want to make people stop living over this. Violence putting an end to a practice that should never be. I think the far away ocean in my chest is going to enjoy it, symphonies of waves crashing on a shoreline creating a resonance reaching to my bones. The sea is going to sing when I kill them. I’m sure of it.

Blowing through the dentist's office late one evening. Killing anyone who’s there. An educated man with a wristwatch and a gray blazer. Another man looking between a rat and a hyena holding onto a cooler box. Dust, shrapnel, slamming bodies into walls. The feeling of ending a line of possibilities by ending life. Violence cutting clean through exploitation like my greater power snapping bone. No more organs being cut out in that office. No more loans being sold to desperate people who don’t have the means to pay them off. The place, the physical place where it happens being wiped from Toprak’s buildings.

Spasming bodies soon to be corpses.

Should I send a message? Move the corpses outside to be seen by all, tie them in some position, hang them out a window? Leave a note or write on the wall outside? Undress them? Burn their money or the small vault their office might have?

The police would definitely be called to deal with the scene. Why take the risk? Why put myself in possible jeopardy?

I’m an unlikely suspect. Young. Not directly connected to any aspect of the business. I’ve never met anyone there. But when you write messages on walls, waste time moving bodies or even create explosive noises, you attract attention. Toprak’s residents could do themselves the disservice of reporting my disguised likeness to the police. Of spotting me around town as I travel back and forth to the housing district, narrowing down the area I might be hiding out in.

The housing district, populated? No. It would take a single day for any officer that knows the area to pick out the residents that stay in it. Searching through personal belongings would have me looking just as guilty when Lera searched through my room.

That’s something I should try change and the tunnels are most likely the answer. I should put time into exploring them. Researching the records of the tunnels in one of the government buildings also sounds good. Could bribe the official or get a homeless man to do it for me.

What about sustaining injuries that could identify me, like my current broken arm. Any time I blow through one of Radovan’s operations, if I’m injured and then noticed by residents looking through their curtains, it becomes that much easier to identify me. I can’t take extra risks when there is already so much potential for me to fail and be caught in the long run.

Might not even be the police who work a few details out and catch me. Could be Radovan and who he sends to put a stop to his money making schemes going up in smoke. That would also be a headache.

The bright side is I don’t think I’ll have to worry about bullets if that happens. The way Radovan spoke about the trouble of getting another gun and the time frame involved leads me to think they don’t have another one. I’ll have to worry about a vengeful Lubov if it comes to that.

I close mom's door and go back to the kitchen.

Forcing the rest of this food down will be good for me.

-

The stocking’s soft material slips over my helm and I stuff the leftover bit up my neck and around the silver rim. That’s what it is kind of. A helm.

I’ve been feeling a slight irritation from the metal rubbing on my neck so I hope the stocking will stop that.

Letting out a sigh, I reach for my coat.

Starting to feel a bit discouraged even though this will only be a third attempt at trying to follow Radovan. I’m going to do it anyway today, but… the time and effort I’m putting into this. There’s that temptation to take the easy route and rather kill everyone in the drug house when I know Radovan is there.

The Organ dentist too. Still mad all these hours later that I forgot to ask her about it this morning.

I check I have my torch and energy bars in my pockets and step out into the housing district.

Still overcast.

Last night I decided to exercise my greater power at my wood gathering spot on the edge of town. It’s at the back of the housing district where the woods were pushed back twenty or thirty years ago. Back then Toprak’s population was naturally growing here in the housing district. The block district was around then, but it was still being built.

I picked one of the young trees and blasted it point blank, even closer than I managed to get to that creature. If I didn’t have my helmet on my face would be full of splinters right now.

Ripped and broken wood flew everywhere leaving only a splintered stump.

It made me reaslise I don’t really know what my power is. A blast from my arm. But I don’t know anything else about it. Seems almost explosive but there’s no heat. There’s a sharp crack in the air but nothing has ever moved aside from what I blast. What’s making the noise?

When I use my greater power it whips up the air, bringing up dust clouds that can’t be seen through. Is that my greater powers comitant or only a reaction to me using it. The whole thing with the wind would almost make me think my greater power is somehow related to whatever elements Delusion has mentioned in the past. But he advises against using or learning them because of their danger. So I don’t see why he would give me a greater power like that.

Give. Delusion would probably be annoyed if he heard my saying that. Earned is what he would explain with some long lesson.

All these questions about my greater power could easily be answered by Delusion. Only I can’t ask him anything. It’s frustrating but at least I don’t have to hear him calling me Sanity.

Looking for someone else with lesser or greater powers might be informative. Creating one- Asking someone to take lesser or greater powers should still be easier to get information from. But who?

Lera comes to mind first, but I don’t think she’s reliable or stable enough for that. After I help her through withdrawals would be a better time.

I could approach one of the homeless. Offer to feed them if they take a certain power and share their Ambits with me. But they might want too much. Like wild animals being fed, they learn to rely on the source, returning again and again. Homeless would probably start holding knowledge hostage, demanding a place to sleep, new clothes, money, nicer food. Too much trouble. Gaining a greater power might even cause them to try take what they want by force.

If I want this to seriously work I need someone I can trust. Someone who would value what I offer. A sibling, a family member, a friend. What other types of worthwhile relationships are there? A mentor, an apprentice, a sharer of the same faith. A son or daughter. A few years too early for that.

Another problem I face with no easy solution. It’s not an integral part of me keeping Lera safe, but I would definitely have an easier time. Information and someone to help when I need it

I look up and see the looming shadow of the shortwave tower in the distance. Almost there.

-

The rain has started. A light drizzle that will steadily dampen my hood and coat.

I better get down while the access ladder is still relatively dry.

Clinging to the rungs, I start the slow descent.

Headlights power on next to the drug house. Is the rain also pushing Radovan to get going?

I step down one more rung and before wrapping my arm around a bar to get a better grip. I need to see where Radovan is going.

Not the blocks this time. Please not the blocks.

I lean into the rungs and rest my chin. Radovan’s car is still idling next to the drug house. If he doesn’t leave soon the ladder is going to be wet.

With my elbow hooked around a rung, I pull an energy bar out. I struggle briefly to tear the wrapper open with my teeth after pushing it up into my helmet. By the time I manage to, Radovan begins pulling off very slowly in the wrong direction.

He’s leaving later today. I wonder why. Maybe it’s the rain pushing him to leave or could there be another reason. Going straight home after eating and checking on the drug house maybe. He could have been calculating daily or weekly income, checking the drug houses stock or even just chatting with Kostas and them.

The headlights seem to shiver from this distance before the car makes a U-turn and Radovan takes his usual road. I watch closely as he passes the park and begins crossing streets. He keeps going and drives below me on the road between the housing district and the shopping district.

I start climbing higher up needing to see where he disappears down the road, but he turns relatively soon into the shopping district. I keep climbing. If I get a little higher I can see over some of the shopping districts buildings and into intersections.

Still climbing, I find the perfect level on the rungs and cling to them again. I should only have to wait a minute or so to know where he has or hasn’t gone.

My body starts to involuntarily shiver. The rungs I’m holding have dropped to an icy temperature in the rain and my coat is damp.

I hold on to the rungs a little tighter and keep scanning the shopping district.

Headlights flash through an intersection several town blocks away. That one is heading towards the Armistice monument. Why would he be going there? Maybe he’s traveling to some destination beyond that, something up along Stosha Avenue.

That’s far though. The central town district is a place where either people with enough money to live there comfortably stay, or wealthy people with a fifth home or apartment visit occasionally for doing business in that area. The wealthy have their mansions elsewhere. Chervoryska most likely.

The central district also has most of the government buildings with some of the utility types being on the far outer edge of it.

I guess there must be something in that direction. Always thought most of Radovan’s dealings were done in the shopping district with its bars and entertainment. Store rooms and warehouses too.

My hand is freezing but I have to get down whether I follow Radovan or not.

Should I follow him? Will I even make it there in time to see anything? Getting to the Armistice Monument is going to take fifteen minutes if I walk very quickly, which I think I can manage because my arm hasn’t been that sore today. But getting all the way into the central district? I have to pass through the outer central district first and then still look around for where Radovan could be.

I have to try.

Mapping out all of Radovan’s contacts is important. No hidden players to come stab me in the back after I start blowing the drug house apart.

Shivers wrack me, threatening my grip and footing as I descend. But with Radovan’s destination being so far away I try to hurry as much as I can in an awkward jig. Step down, hand down, step down, hand down.

My feet finally find the ground and it’s so unexpected I fall over onto my back. The ground isn’t too wet yet but I’m sure my coat has mud on it now.

I push myself up, duck through the shortwave towers fencing, and start jogging down the same road Radovan passed by beneath me earlier.

The rain drizzles down obscuring the street in the distance, but there are a few lights on the shopping district side showing the way. Fear of jarring my arm makes me slow my pace down to a fast walk as I begin to cover town blocks towards the Armistice Monument. Once I get onto the start of Stosha Avenue, it will be the fastest way to follow him. I’m taking more or less his same route.

I cross the street into the shopping district a couple blocks before I think Radovan turned in. A bottle store lights the way.

He has to be there already, wherever there is. I’ve still got to get into the outer central district, never mind crossing the central district. Maybe it’s too far and I need a better plan to reliably track him down.

Like a bicycle or a scooter. I don’t think there are any laws that matter about someone my age buying and using a scooter. Either there aren’t any or I’ve never seen them enforced.

All this deliberation over how to go faster and I find myself jogging around the corner onto the road that will lead me to the Armistice Monument.

Across the street, a bar owner is busy locking up his establishment and pays me no mind. I face away. Better he doesn’t see the reflective silver of my helm under my hoodie. I keep jogging but still try to take it easy on my broken arm. The rain has soaked me and my cloak feels heavy but this could be the night I find Radovan at a petrol station meeting up with police to give them their weekly roll of Kruna.

I run through the same intersection I saw Radovan cross from the shortwave’s access ladder. The traffic lights are flashing out of order, probably because of the rain. This is where I lost sight. Though his direction was clear.

I really need a bike or something. My broken arm worries me so I slow down and begin applying gentle pressure to it with my good hand as a test. The Orphanage is coming up in a block or two. I’ll walk until the Armistice Monument.

The streets are slick and I’m dripping wet.

The lights of a lone car draw my eyes down a road crossing the one I’m on. I step back away from the pavement and try to stay in the shadows of the building at my shoulder.

The headlights approach slowly from around the corner, evidently someone heading home and taking the roads carefully in the wet.

I'll wait the car out. Better to not be seen at all or soon there will be reports on the shortwave of a vandal stalking Toprak at the dead of night.

The car comes to a stop to check if the roads are clear. Its headlights partially illuminate the front of the Orphanage.

The doors are closed as always and all of the lights are out on the upper floors. There must be a curfew with the girls being punished if found with their lights on in the middle of the night.

The car pulls off, crossing the road I’m on and my eyes follow it, trying to decide when it will be far enough away for me to cross.

Silver.

The car and its headlights pass over two cars, one of them a silver sports car. Both are parked along the side of the Orphanage. The parked cars are lit up briefly but I feel like it’s unmistakable.

That is Radovan’s car.

It can’t be. Why would he be here?

I almost walked right past it on my way to the Armistice Monument and here he might be.

But it can’t be him. What would he be doing at the Orphanage?

Could it be the same car but a different owner?

No, that doesn’t add up either. Maybe if a silver sports car was driving around the inner central district or parked near one of the hotels, it would make sense. Seeing it in Chervoryska, a city far wealthier than Toprak, would make even more sense. But out here next to the Orphanage at the edge of the shopping district and the outer central district in the middle of the night? Strange can’t describe that.

I think about pulling my torch out and checking the number plate, but I don’t know what Radovan’s number plate is.

Do I kill him right here, blast him into the Orphanages wall with my greater power as he walks to his car? Then kick his head in when he’s down.

It would be easy. The world would be slightly better. Lera would be a little safer.

But would that be for the best? All of Radovan’s contacts, all these loose ends left to continue their operations.

I’m not ready. I want them all.

The street is dark under the rain with only a few lights off in the distance like the out of order robots or the few shops on the shopping district side with an illuminated sign or dimly lit windows.

Radovan will leave the Orphanage eventually. I’m going to wait and see for myself. Leaving without laying my eyes on him feels like it will be an incredible mistake.

Across the street, opposite the Orphanage’s doors, is a sheltered landing for the set of stairs leading up into that building. A chained gate bars entry.

I move there, picking the darkest corner, and check myself over with my hand.

Glove on. Wet but dark clothes. Hoodie drawstrings tight. Stocking over helmet with the hoodie hiding almost all of the silver faceplates. No torch or energy bars sticking out of my pocket.

Now I must wait.

The minutes pass and I somehow feel colder than when I stood in the rain. Water drips from my coat but water also drips from the edge of the stair’s shelter in front of me. I won’t be noticed.

Radovan’s car sits quietly down the street on the side of the Orphanage, a shadow. While not comforting, it lets me know I’m not going insane.

My eyes wander the Orphanage’s upper windows, looking for any movement. There are children caged inside that are never seen. Well now, girls.

The Orphanage’s door suddenly opens and I still. Radovan’s back is to the street. He seems to move his arm in front of him, some small motion made with his elbow. He turns and exits the Orphanage, his slim razor frame jogging back to the side where he parked his car. He pays me no attention. I’m sure I’m practically invisible.

What the fuck is going on? What would Radovan be here visiting the Orphanage?

Two more figures exit the Orphanage. Two men. One carries an umbrella, using it to shelter the smaller fatter man as they follow Radovan’s footsteps at a walk.

Radovan takes a second getting the driver's door open before ducking into his car.

The headlights come on as the engine revs to life.

I’m instantly blinded. Like an idiot, I didn’t think about what would happen when he started his car and turned his lights on.

I hold my breath and pray the stocking over my silver helmet reduces his headlights reflection enough to overlook me. Only a tiny portion of my helmet is visible where my face plates give me vision because of my hoodie. But there is still some of the chrome-like metal visible.

He pulls off and turns. The headlights flash over me, while behind him the second car starts up, headlights also blazing. I try to sink deeper into stillness, into being a statue under the shelter of the stairs as Radovan finishes his turn and accelerates towards the Armistice Monument again. The second car following suit.

I wait until both the lights and the sounds of their cars are drowned out by the gentle rain on the street.

Releasing my breath I pull out an energy bar, tear it open and shove it in my mouth.

I’m freezing.

Why would Radovan be here?

I’m pretty sure Lera has mentioned off-handedly about Radovan having family members over the years, something like nephews and uncles. Meaning he didn’t grow up in the Orphanage, only being released when he became too old. Not adopted either. There’s no explanation for him coming here.

Does he sell drugs to the Matron or maybe the girls? Seems unlikely.

Is the Orphanage some kind of sweatshop with girls repacking drugs from bulk size to street size? Insane. Could be possible though.

What else, what other reason?

There were also those two other men. Like Radovan was meeting with them about something. I only got a brief glimpse before Radovan’s headlights blinded me.

The shorter one was gray and balding, though not overly ancient. I think he walked with a cane. Seemed to be dressed smartly but that was only an impression. The larger man with the umbrella… I didn’t notice anything besides him being large and holding the umbrella for the shorter man.

Their car, I didn’t get a decent look because it all happened so quickly before being blinded. I think it was also out of place here. Elegant, sophisticated and large. Also a car you would expect to see in Toprak’s wealthier central district area.

What would they be doing at an Orphanage? A girls Orphanage now.

Had it been turned into a brothel, a prostitution ring?

The girls… Where does Radovan get the girls from for all his talk of selling them into prostitution?

He farms them from the Orphanage. It’s a farm with girls being bussed in from other towns and cities. A private government network endlessly supplying new girls to be sold for a fortune.

What was it Radovan said about the girls when I was held down in the back-road?

They are the real money