Upon arriving at the Clinical Laboratory, as the old rusty sign on the wall announced, Simon stopped at its entrance; as if he were afraid of being absorbed by the darkness which eclipsed the room’s interior.

A stream of cold air crept down the ventilation shaft above his head, and sneaked under his jacket, freezing the back of his neck and giving him a peculiar chill. His father used to call that feeling ‘Death Passing By,’ and since he had always feared his father more than death itself, he had renamed it ‘Dad Passing By.’

Trying to shake off that icy caress that ran down his back, as if it were an inopportune insect, Simon struck the floor with the tips of his combat boots, but all he did was produce a sinister metallic echo in the iron corridor.

He looked inside the room from outside until his eyes adjusted to the little light that was there, and he distinguished in the shadows who he was looking for. He pulled aside one side of his military jacket and exposed his bandaged chest. There were hidden two major wounds, one left by Malin’s heel, and the other left by Uri. That was the worst.

That jerk’s blow, which had mixed the force of the lightning with mysterious ghostly flames had caused him a deep cut and a difficulty in breathing he might carry until the end of his days. He felt the imperative need for scratching the scar, but he couldn’t; just grazing his chest was enough for the wound to sting like hell.

“You knew this would happen, right?” Simon scolded the one in the lab, though not as vehemently as he would have liked. His voice was shaking with anger, and he was so nervous he was perspiring, even with the cold air from the vent blowing over his head.

With a slap, he wiped the sweat from his chin and mustaches, and waited for an answer below the threshold; he didn’t dare to enter and speak to him closely.

Inside, with no other lighting other than the brightness of the screens and the consoles reflected in his empty face, Broga was standing in front of a computer terminal, in silence, with one arm extended and connected to one of the many ports of the machine through wires. A small point of light pulsed on his forearm; first white, then red, over and over again, following a hypnotic rhythm. It was as if he were giving himself an intravenous infusion of pure information.

“That’s why you told me to go after Malin, right?” Simon insisted. “You used me as bait to awaken the powers of that sissy boy, right?”

But the android didn’t respond; he didn’t even turn to him or look back at him as he had done other times.

The silence returned to the dim laboratory; only the buzzing of computers and other electronic devices sounded in the background.

Simon stayed put and covered his bandages with his combat jacket once again. He had to pull himself together; he had to watch his mouth, even if what he was saying was true. Everything seemed to show the android had its systems turned off and didn’t hear him, but he knew that wasn’t the case. One more tantrum and his current boss could do without his services and take him down with a single punch.

That was when his partner showed up behind him: a grotesque guy almost three feet taller than him, with a back three times wider than his and with arms so big and strong that they looked like the arms of a gorilla. He was bald, with small eyes, and a huge mouth, and he had hundreds of scars that made pale marks on his shiny, hairless skin.

“He’s sleeping?” the big man asked, referring to Broga. His voice sounded guttural and paused.

Simon cast a glance at the android, then he looked back at his partner.

“No,” he said. “Charging up batteries.”

The giant smiled, showing his crooked teeth, and cracked his knuckles.

“Well, when he wakes up, tell him I went to pay that pretty boy a visit,” he said. He turned around and continued his way down the corridor; he was so huge he barely fit in it.

“Yeah, you go.” Simon chuckled. “If anything happens to that sissy boy, the android will cut you in half,” he warned, but the big guy didn’t seem to hear it. Today, like any other day in his life, everyone was ignoring him. “You stupid mastodon,” he snorted then, watching him leave, and threw a spit at him from a distance.