There it is! Uri cursed.

I’ll be deported. I’ll be deported and imprisoned. Malin imagined herself handcuffed. Damn it! I’ll be deported and imprisoned!

It was too late to close a fair deal. They would hand her over to the Army, and there, it won’t matter what her father’s rank was, or how respected he was, she would be sentenced like any other traitor to the Empire. Furthermore, her own father would be more than glad to put her behind bars.

“You’ve repeatedly abandoned Markabian territory without permission, Miss Viveka, and that is punished by the law of your government,” Thomas Hemdell said. “You should know that law doesn’t apply here, but there are others that I have resorted to in this file, arguing that your presence in this territory compromises its security. If I give the order, my men will take you away as they did with the mercenary. Although I’m willing to lift those charges and grant you political asylum in addition to a resident ID for this country if Mr. O22 agrees to help us.”

Malin awaited Uri’s decision in silence; her gaze fixed on Hemdell. As a trader, he is very skilled, and as District Chief, he is a masterful son of a bitch.

“Come on, Mr. O22. It’s shooting at that rock, taking a sample, and coming back. It can’t take you more than five minutes,” the man insisted, and from the way he stroked his mustaches, it seemed that he had somehow been waiting for one of them to decline his offer to abuse his authority. “If you don’t, we’ll turn Miss Viveka over to her country’s authorities, and you may not know, but she is associated with a group of insurgents known as the Rowdy Ones, and the Imperialists are not very fond of the Rowdy Ones.”

The battle was lost, all right.

Uri shrugged.

“I don’t see how to object,” he said.

“Perfect,” Hemdell smiled. “Miss Viveka will remain in our custody until we finish the operation. Tomorrow first thing…”

And suddenly, Juzo’s voice sounded in Uri’s head: If you’ll do something you don’t want, at least put your conditions first!

Damn it! His twin was right! Where the competitive, entrepreneurial spirit which he had achieved so much with had gone? Since he’d taken a seat, he’d behaved like an idiot who had nothing to offer but a silly response, ineffective in imposing his will. He relaxed his hands and raised his index finger, mimicking the gesture Hemdell made when he pointed things out. And suddenly, his face showed a severity that resembled Juzo’s.

“I have a condition,” he said. “Miss Viveka will not remain in your custody. She’ll stay with me and accompany me on the operation.”

With a thoughtful look, Thomas Hemdell took a cigar from the box; and as if he were at a fairground show and he was the magician, he discovered a silver lighter from his suit’s sleeve. He snapped it; the little silver square showed its flame with a click and lit the cigar. He closed the lighter with another click and put it back in. He took a deep drag, and as he blew out the smoke, he leaned back in the chair. He was quite the gangster boss.

“Don’t you think that’s asking a lot?” he said.

“No.” Uri crossed his arms; it was his turn to prove that he was a skilled trader too.

Without taking his dark, glassy eyes off of the young man, the District Chief created a curtain of wraiths with his cigar.

“Deal,” he agreed. “Of course, neither of you will have to leave this territory until the operation is complete. Otherwise, we would consider it an attempt to escape; and not only will Miss Viveka’s file be reopened, but we will also press charges against you, Mr. O22.”

“With that footage in your possession, relax; I’m not going anywhere,” Uri replied.

“Very well.” Hemdell gave a deep puff. “The trip to Black Plateau will be the day after tomorrow. I’ll go with you.”

Uri raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t you think it’s too soon? That rock has been in that place for years, who knows if centuries; I doubt it’ll grow legs and run away if we wait a few more days.”

The dark glint of Hemdell’s eyes pierced through the smokescreen. “I have accepted your terms, Mr. O22, now abide by mine. It would be irresponsible of me to leave you in charge of such an elusive fugitive, like the young lady here, for longer than it should. However, we could arrange the trip for next week, as had been my intention from the beginning, if Miss Viveka stays here, in custody, from now on.”

Malin grabbed Uri’s wrist, letting him know she accepted the arrest.

“It’s fine. I’ll be fine,” she said, trying a calm smile.

Uri shook his head and took a deep breath.

“The trip will be the day after tomorrow,” he conceded.

Thomas Hemdell left his cigar lit on the edge of the ashtray, and after smoothing out the part of the red tie sticking out of his suit, he stood up, reminding them how imposing he looked in a black tux. He shook their hands as a farewell. The meeting had just concluded.

Uri and Malin left their chairs, and the District Chief escorted them to the office’s door.

“I’ll wait for you tomorrow, Mr. O22.”

Uri, already imagining himself outside, cast a silly smile.

“You mean the day after tomorrow.”

Hemdell responded with another smile, but not at all silly.

“We will make the trip on Thursday,” he clarified. “You’ll come first thing tomorrow morning so that my scientists can carry out some tests on you.”

Uri and Malin exchanged glances.

“What tests?”

“Clinical, mostly. We want to see what state you are in.”

“It won’t be necessary, I recently had a checkup and everything is all right,” Uri replied.

“We know,” Hemdell nodded. “At the Proxima Central Hospital, at the request of your physician, Dr. Sarah Lanen. Since entering the ER, after the accident at Liberty Park, I can recite point by point what’s on your medical records. I can even tell you exactly the level of red blood cells in your blood.” Once again, the District Chief let his hubris gush as if it were an exquisite perfume. “However, the tests I want to run on you are somewhat different. Or did you think the Ita-Hu phenomenon is the only thing that has caught our attention? An investigation agency cannot ignore the existence of a person with capabilities like yours.”

Uri felt the brief harshness Juzo had imposed on his personality run down the drain of his unconscious.

“Hey, you’re not planning to rip a piece of my body to study why I’m emitting that radiation, like you want to do with the rock, are you?” he commented, half-serious, half-joking.

Hemdell could not help but snickered; one profound yet brief snicker.

“We have discussed this idea with my colleagues,” he joked with a straight face, “but we discarded it for a simple reason: we’re not savages, Mr. O22. You see, the Ita-Hu is an uncut diamond, and you are the tool that will help us polish it. Would you damage the chisel before using it?”

“So, what kind of tests are we talking about?” Malin insisted.

“I need to know what’s in his genes,” Hemdell replied, and played down the drama with a slight nod. “Don’t worry, Miss Viveka; we won’t dissect him like a frog if that’s what worries you. We just want to know how right we are about Mr. O22’s capabilities so that the trip to Black Plateau is not a complete waste of time.” He opened the door and took them out of the office. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are other matters that I have to attend to.”

The heavy wooden door closed behind them, biting their heels.

In the small entrance hall, next to the secretary girl with glasses and a miniskirt, Uri and Malin were motionless without knowing what to do. They could go in again and ask the District Chief to go deeper into the many topics discussed, or they could leave and try to forget the bad time they just had, at least for a while.

However, two men in gray came and decided for them. With a sign, they showed them the way out and escorted them to the very exit of the building.

Uri felt a lump in his throat and a nervous spasm in the pit of his stomach. Everything was finished. His dreams, his expectations of regaining a normal life after the last situations—everything. There was a video that gave him away as the phenomenon he was, an agency that seemed to know how many times he went to the bathroom per day; and a superb District Chief who, besides wanting to use him for a simple purpose, such as traveling to a small town to break a piece of rock, also wanted to put him on a table so that a bunch of doctors could put a stethoscope on him, there, where the sun didn’t shine.

How naïve he felt remembering that, at some point, he’d thought all this madness of radiation, quantum geysers and scientific projects would go away as if it were a bad dream!