I believe that Shelv omitted something in the rookie’s personal file he sent me.
Like that he’s stupid.
I see his reflection in the window from which he’s looking out, and one moment he is grinning and then, the moment after, he’s the personification of a depressed Emo.
I shrug and prefer not to think about it. Do I always have to work with insanes?
What the rookie doesn’t know, is that I know practically everything.
Of course I protested because he was 17. What the fuck, my house is not a nursery school. At seventeen you can’t even drive here.
But I also read the accounts of his previous missions and they were all performed very well. If instead of selling his mother to capture all of those refugees, he would have just killed them without giving it a second thought, he would have surely struggled less.
I guess in the end it’s the result that counts. And as Shelv says, maybe I do need some kind of conscience rubbing me the wrong way every now and then.
If it is true that I want to quit this shitty job. I keep on saying it but I do enjoy it after all.
However Shelv is not stupid. This guy has agility which, I must admit, I don’t have.
I pass by and destroy everything.
This guy also uses magic, and I don’t, except for lighting my cigarettes. Too cerebral.
Now I just have to test him a bit, I just hope that Sin doesn’t show up next time, otherwise we’ll be in deep shit.
Knowing him, I doubt he’ll be thrilled with the rookie.
In his sick mind he’ll see him as an intrusion into our private game.
Meanwhile, those fucking stitches they put me at the Confederation hospital are killing me. Isn’t there a way to heal human beings without forcing them to stay in bed for days?
I turn the second to the right and check my rearview mirrors: clear.
I take a sharp left turn and get into the old castoff railway underpass. If it wasn’t for the seatbelt, the blue rookie would crash on me. He shoots me a dirty look.
– Just in case someone was following us. Well, now they wouldn’t anymore – I explain him, then turn left and go down the underground garage entrance.
-But there was nobody! – He protests
By the Gods, what a drag. If he’s always like this I’ll kill him first.
****
– This is home – He says as he goes down an apparently abandoned basement.
I look around.
We came into the underground garage of an old textile factory, or at least that’s what I think, judging from the waste scattered all around. I can see old industrial-sized spools, garbage bags, pallets and boxes.
He stops. Then he presses a button on a remote hanging from the car keys and a wall opens.
Yes, an entire wall slides sideways.
I’m stunned.
As soon as we pass through it with the car, the wall closes behind us. I’m still staring at the wall that just closed when the engine stops, and he gets out of the car. I get out too and I find myself in front of the biggest means of transport that I’ve ever seen, at least on wheels.
I look at him and point to the huge black truck next to me – Is this your job? –
– Yep.- He grins, happily. Just like a father introducing his gorgeous daughter with multiple college degrees. Meet my joy and delight. I worked for it ten years and I still couldn’t legally afford it. This is my Magnum DXi 13 500 6×2 Pusher tractor –
– Huh… –
-What do you say? –
He’s waiting for me to tell him that it’s wonderful but I’m not a truck lover, and what he just told me sounded all Greek to me.
– Well… It’s big… – I say, keeping things vague.
– Yes, yes it’s huge! – He answers.
He’s really proud of it, you should see how he just lighted up.
He unloads my things and throws them to me.- Right, let’s settle down before the sucker strikes back –
I load the bag over one shoulder and the backpack over the other one and join him.
-What do you mean? That we both now live here? –
– No, I had you collect your stuff to go camping this week end –
– I don’t see why we couldn’t work together while living in different houses –
– Were you born stupid or were you just waiting for me? – This macho attitude is starting to annoy me. He then continues – No, really, enlighten me. When a refugee passes the border it takes about 2 seconds before the Confederation finds out, then another 30 to call the closest ally, then it takes about 10 to 14 more minutes just to get there. If I then have to add some more time to come and pick you up at home as if we were going out on a date, then it would just be easier for me to go there by myself! Don’t you think? –
Just the thought of it makes me sick.
We’re going up with a shaky hoist and I’m feeling more and more depressed. A guy like this will definitely live in a filthy hovel. Not that I’m the perfect housewife who keeps everything clean and perfect, but I honestly don’t know what to expect from him. I already foresee week old pizza boxes, beer cans on the floor, a long time clogged toilet and …
We arrive at the floor and I am dumbfounded…
****
Home at last.
If it were for me I would never go out, except to go for a ride or deliver something with the Magnum.
I open the service elevator door and put my Beretta and house keys on the coin tray. Then I crash on the couch, I repress a wince from the sudden burst of pain coming from my right side (the patched one), and I stretch my back.
I realize only then that the rookie is still in the elevator. I lean over the couch and tell him
– Are you waiting to cross the threshold in Prince Charming’s arms? –
He doesn’t even hear me. He seems to have petrified. He takes a few steps into the house and checks the place up. His mouth wide open.
I ignore him.
-Listen, you sleep on the couch until I find you a place. On a second thought, there is a sofa bed in the study, maybe it’s better if you stay in there. Feel free to use the computer that’s in it, after all I don’t even know how to use it, but you seem to know what you’re doing.-
I turn on the tv while he’s still there, frozen in the middle of the living room looking around himself.
****
I think five minutes have passed since we entered the house and I haven’t even uttered a single syllable in spite of the fact that Tears was talking to me. I must have just hit my new personal best.
The house is nothing short of huge.
It’s made from an old weaving department, so it’s a massive loft. A whole side of the house is occupied by the windows overlooking the street. There are five or six arched windows, each of a two meter span. They’re the firm kind ones, with an iron frame and many fixed small glass squares. The air circulation is controlled by a huge fan placed over the central apartment window. From the outside you can’t see anything, the windows are all tattered and yellowed by time, but inside everything is well kept and clean.
The floor is all in wood, except for the kitchen area where the flooring is in slate stone. There is an American stile open-plan kitchen, with a low counter to separate it from the living room.
Tears is washed up on a leather sofa, the coffee table in front of him is made out of two truck tires topped with a round glass. The living room cabinet is in modern style, black and shiny. There is a 42-inch plasma TV over it and below a Playstation, a satellite system and God’s own stereo.
The kitchen is white and black, in perfect order. Eye level oven, microwave, double door refrigerator, new and well cared for appliances of various kinds all around…
I finally speak.
-How on Earth can you afford for all this? The Confederation pay sucks! –
– Well kiddo, I’ve always had two jobs, the Confederation underpays its allies, but not its mercenaries.- he grins – Have you any idea of how much they give me for every Refugee I take care of? –
– No, they give me a hundred euros for each one of them…-
– Add a zero to that, and you have my parcel, only if it is an easy job of course-
I freak out.- So tonight you we’ve made six thousand euros!? –
– Exactly –
I’d better become gay and marry him.
He gets up, goes to the refrigerator and takes a beer, while he’s speaking to me – Ok, so let’s clarify a couple of rules – he opens beer with his teeth, and just the thought of it makes my premolars hurt – I don’t mind mess too much, but I can’t stand the dirt, so you clean up whatever you get dirty, okay? –
I nod. It seems more than fair to me.
– Then, when I wake up I want total silence. Otherwise I get a headache and I’m pissed off all day.-
– Did anybody get on your wrong side when you woke up today? –
He drinks. – No, today I am peaceful –
Great.
-As I said before you can stay in the studio – He goes to a sort of antechamber and I follow him. He points to the first door on the right and opens it.
It’s a room that could easily fit half of my apartment. Wooden floors, a huge arched window just like the ones in the living room, but this has a side that opens like a book, so no fans. There is a great desk with a computer that is worth more than any good I possess in this world and the other one.
-This is the study – he says -That’s the sofa bed, you sleep there, here is the computer which is hooked to the Confederation line, they told me you can speak directly to Shelv through it, but I am not able to use it so feel free to do what you want with it.-
I wonder how he knows what that computer does if he doesn’t know how to use it and, above all, why does he have it if he doesn’t know how to use it, but I follow him in silence as he shows me the rest of the apartment.
He exits and I follow him
-Here halfway down the hall there is the john. There’s only one of them, so don’t spend hours in it putting your makeup on, ok? –
I don’t comment to that one.
There are still two doors. He points to one of them – And this is my room, where you don’t enter without being previously authorized. Is everything clear? The house is all here.-
– And the room next to yours? – I already have my hand on the doorknob, but it’s locked.
– It’s the closet.- And he goes back to the living room. I follow him.
He comes to a halt and gives me an incisive look.- Now I have a couple of questions.-
I nod
– Be concise now.- and he lists on his fingers – Do you like pizza? –
– Yes –
-Chinese? –
– Sure –
-Kebab? You didn’t eat it earlier –
– Oh I eat it all right, it’s just that I was sick from all that_-
He raises his hand – Concise – he repeats. He then continues -You’re straight? –
– Well yes! – What kind of a question was that?
– You never know… It’s better to take precautions, I need to know if I can walk around in my underwear without risking…- I get a nervous eyebrow tic, while he continues. – What kind of music do you listen to? –
I give it a thought – A little bit of everything… –
– “A little bit of everything” is not an answer. Even those who listen to everything barfing out from Radio Italia say the same thing.-
– Hum, ok, I prevalently listen to dance and pop music, all kinds of rock, from Led Zeppelin to alternative rock and ah! I love Electropop. A little bit of metal, like the Iron Maidens – I see his face lighting up -or the Blind Guardians…- he then interrupts me.
-Great! – He’s happy, and I also think amazed by the fact that I know about all of those groups. The thing is that, yes, I’ve been here for just a couple of months, but I also had internet access at the castle, back with the Samirien… – One last thing. Supposing that you’ll be able to pick up a chick, I don’t want to have to talk to her the morning after, so I will ignore her, and she must be out of here by noon, copy that? –
-Yes… –
Supposing that?
I sigh, he throws himself back on the couch and turns on the TV. I take one last look around me and go to the study, which will be my new room.
And so I ended up living with Tears Eirdar.
I shut the door behind me and I seriously think that I should get myself a new myth.
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