On the roofs
Prologue
Switch sat on the concrete floor of the roof of the house in which he lived. He wasn't thinking about anything. He let his thoughts drift slowly, and the bloody sun, which shone through the twilight, gave the whole scene a hypnotic touch. Thumbs in China sometimes twitched, as if to indicate that they needed more space again. However, the toes of the shoes in which they were hidden extended beyond the edge of the fifteen-story building. A flock of birds flew past, circling two acrobatic half-brothers, and disappeared beyond the edge somewhere in the depths plunging over the elaborate city.
Switch suddenly rose sharply and jumped over the edge into the open space where a flock of quirky creatures had disappeared a moment ago. Just as the athletes jump into the pool at the Olympics, the jury then evaluates the style of their jump, with their hands over their heads, biceps pressing to their ears and their legs expertly crossed. But the most important thing was to maintain the state of mind he had previously reached quite hard upstairs. The cold late evening air whistled around his ears, and he was also cold from the fingers protruding from his hands. The moment he reached about halfway up the building, moving his outstretched arms back and tilting his head at the same time, he began to pick up a dive and gradually align the axis of his body with the sidewalk below. He was already on the ground when he realized that he should have started braking much earlier. He was gliding almost horizontally now, but he was close, too close to the ground to sit comfortably on his feet, as he should. So he tried the only maneuver possible at the time. He wrapped his body in a ball and reached for himself with his right hand. He rolled into Judopad, but the speed was still too high, and he did about twenty quick, dangerously hard turns on the rough pavement of the sleeping city. Exhausted, he lay exhausted on his back on the ground, unable to lift his head to see if anyone had seen him.
Chapter 1
The kitchen smelled of freshly baked donuts, and Max waited impatiently for Lin to bring coffee to the table. He looked at her as he had never looked at a girl before. She was nice, she had her own style, and besides, it burned her. Lin was born in the United States to a Chinese cyberneticist and American archaeologist, and the combination of both of her parents' features gave her a special, unseen attraction. Max didn't think much of himself, just a guy with millions running around the world, but Lin knew why she spent time with him. On the one hand, she had never met a man who could disassemble everything as quickly as Max, reassemble it no less quickly, and understand how the thing worked during the process (sometimes he didn't even have to disassemble the thing), and on the other, she liked it. Not in the way of movie stars or the kind of guys who spend half a day choosing the right combination of clothes, but he had a kind of charm in him, made up of modesty, self-confidence, and ease, and that attracted her.
Max stopped to make an appointment for the evening. Now he sat across from her and heard himself and Lin talking, making suggestions, laughing, seemingly upset, but his spirit was completely different. He watched her mouth move, sensed her faint scent, her magnetic presence embodied in predictable shapes and movements that took his breath away with relentless perseverance.
A few tens of meters away at the outer wall of the same house, in places where forgotten courtyards were crawling through half-dilapidated walls crawling with ivy and rats dancing their hungry reggae, several dark shadows came off the wall. A faint thud caused two anchors to drag at a high speed along the peeled wall, dragging ropes behind them. The trained arms then reached almost inaudibly toward the half-open window on the third floor. Only for a moment did something disturb them, all movement suddenly stopped, and the figures with the muscle fibers taut to burst stiffened. Then the cat whimpered, the tension easing, and the almost unnaturally fast-paced puppets soon reached the window sill. When the first quiet foot landed on the tiled floor, in apartment number 3 at the end of the hall, two young people still had no idea that their joy would not last long.
Chapter 2
A fire blazed in the fireplace, illuminating the evening room, at least so that the old man in the heavy red-clad chair could recognize the beloved images of the old masters in the book. The man's face received warm rays from the left, and his sharp features cast almost spooky shadows toward the room. A light, warm August breeze blew in through the open French window, dancing the long curtains in a playful yet cheerful rhythm.
The man was waiting for a call. He built his immense power through a mixture of ties to famous people and bloody deeds, with which, however, no one ever connected him. He learned from old masters that the combination of brush boom and tiny detail affects people the most. And as they loved religious themes, because they connect in a special way the world of ordinary people with the worlds of the gods, the atmosphere of fear and worship. He always felt a little god.
When the phone rang, it didn't upset him in any way. He was used to picking up the phone and receiving news of his success calmly. Such a calming effect has power on people. He put his ear to the receiver and heard a short anticipated message: "The sparrow has finished, the swallow has disappeared from the nest."
*
Chapter 3
In the old underground garages, three floors below ground, several dozen torches hung from the pupils of about fifteen young people on the walls. The group stood in a circle, discussing something in muffled voices. The musty air of the vast room perfectly matched the deliberately careless appearance of the debaters, mingling with the poorly ventilated smoke of the only light sources at that depth underground.
"I was there, and there was a lot of blood on the ground, like after a crash, but something didn't suit me, something was wrong."
"Did anyone talk to him? Did he say something? ”
"I tried, they didn't want to let me in, but I got there and he looked really awful. I talked to him and I don't know if he even perceived me, but when I asked if he couldn't do it, if he fell, I would swear he shook his head like he didn't. "
"It simply came to our notice then. The switch wasn't quite the safest, but it doesn't suit me to kill itself. "
"That's clear, the bastards shot him."
Suddenly the group fell silent. The sounds of an approaching board could be heard from above. They parted and hid their presence in the dark corners so that only eyes and torches could reveal that someone was there. The crouched figure descended from the upper floor toward them. The young man jumped off the skateboard and fell to the knees in the dust. Even in the dim light around him, it was possible to read traces of despair and exhaustion from his face.
"They have Lin," Max said in a strangled voice, sliding into the dust at the feet of his frightened comrades and losing consciousness.
Chapter 4
The mountains are beautifully fresh, the sun is kind of sublime and the whole atmosphere of everything around it informs visitors or residents that Mother Nature rules here and that she will not just let her rule be taken. William had been getting up every day for several months with this feeling, and it was no different today. He peered out of the small tent, stretched, and walked toward the stream, letting his bare feet pierce the wall of grass blades so that as much refreshing dew as possible fell on his sleepy fingers. After performing his morning hygiene, somewhat unconventional in relation to what he was once accustomed to from the city, he headed for a small gorge. Along the way, other young people joined him, and when they reached the stone rampart that optically closed the gorge they were heading for, he knew they had arrived just in time. The Teacher came from the left and motioned a slight smile for his students to enter in front of him. William knew today was a big day. Today, after about a quarter of a year of preparations, they will begin flying training today.
Chapter 5
When Lin woke up, she had no idea where she was. All around, it was impenetrable darkness at first glance, lying on the cold floor on her side, her legs tied at her ankles and her hands on her wrists behind her back. A rag used as a gag cut uncomfortably into her mouth. There was no window in the room, and no sounds came through. Lin estimated that he would probably be in a dungeon very far from the people.
She didn't remember much about last night. They sat with Max in the kitchen, conversing furiously as several veiled figures burst in. The attack was so surprising that they could do nothing. Max was eliminated first, catching a couple of blows, and as he lay on the ground, not moving, the man holding Lin from behind with a knife to her carotid artery grabbed her arms nonchalantly and tied them behind her back. Then Lin was struck by a blunt object and lost consciousness.
Now it was primarily a matter of getting out of here ("Is Max okay?"). Lin sat awkwardly and only now realized how much her whole body hurt. Unseen at the tip of her own nose, she tried to search her surroundings with outstretched legs. It took her about half an hour to estimate, because even though the room wasn't too big, you never know where you might fall. The only thing she found during her search was that the floor and walls were made of stone cubes, and that her prison was perfectly empty besides her. Then Lin realized that she was hungry and that she was incredibly thirsty.
Chapter 6
Kate Sloan's greatest achievement in journalism to date has been praised by a U.S. congressional senator about her, in her opinion not very successful, article about the mysterious decline of turpans, a species of Canadian duck. The article did not help either the Turpani to stop waning or Kate Sloan to start her dizzying career.
According to her colleagues, Kate was a handsome woman in her thirties, a little crazy, indulging in reading books for women and studying various mysteries. Now she currently works for the New York Visitor, a slice read by just garbage men when they go home and taxi drivers when they wait too long for a customer. Kate knew that punching in this way could take her at least another ten years, and it was clear to her that if something fundamental did not happen soon, she would have to give up and prove her superficial father, who always ignored her and claimed that no girl from Ohio has made a name for herself "in town," and Kate will definitely not be the first. In the near future, it was to be shown how wrong her father was.
Chapter 7
At the St. On Hope Street, several hands worked very deftly to accomplish their secret mission. It was necessary to move one patient in a coma over a relatively large distance in a very short time. By order of someone powerful, the young man was dead for the whole world today, so no one will miss him. Only those who put him in this state, when they find out, will certainly not make them very happy.
Chapter 8
After a cup of strong coffee and a few biscuits, Max's head cleared and his legs regained their lost stability. He was sitting in an apartment that the Brotherhood members had used as one of the shelters in turbulent times, recovering from the shock he had experienced. His injuries were only superficial; several bruises looked ugly, but apart from the pain and temporary aesthetic damage, the attackers did nothing serious. Max was more worried about Lin. He remembered holding a knife to her throat, but it was more of a threat before trying to escape. Rather, he was worried about why she had been abducted. And from what he had heard about Switch, it seemed that someone was liquidating the Brotherhood members one by one for a hitherto unknown purpose. "I have to find Lin and save her," Max decided firmly, though he knew that this romantic rise to emotion was not backed up by the brave qualities of a brave hero or the slightest plan. Besides, it seemed that the ground had fallen on his favorite.
Chapter 9
"Sit comfortably." we all have enough space around us …… .. each of us is here alone and yet we are all together ……. let's start breathing ……… exactly as we learned ..… .. ”
William listened to his Teacher's warm voice. There were other students scattered all around, who, like him, were guided in a somewhat monotonous but still magnetic tone somewhere in the deep throat of the man in front of them.
The teacher stood firm but relaxed so he could see all the young people in front of him. He knew almost everything about each of them, he knew their fates and he was determined from the bottom of his heart to help them. They were lost young people, vagrants of a human world that knows no mercy. Most of those who were able to endure long and demanding training were able to find the meaning of their lives again.
William allowed individual particles of air to flow slowly along the inner walls of the nasal passages. As he slowed the movement of the air, his body and especially his mind calmed down. After about 20 minutes of gradually turning off the perception of his own body to the necessary minimum, he heard his Teacher's voice again.
“Your body sits on the grass in the middle of the rocks and slowly becomes part of the scenery around. But not you. There you are sitting inside that body, listening to my voice and looking forward to what is to come, what is to happen and what you do not miss. You will peel off the ground today. Today you will become completely new beings. Today will be what you will remember as the day when it ceased to be before It and began to be after Tom. Your new birth will take place today. "
"You are strong, you are powerful, the body you have placed in the middle of the rocks has no power over you. Awaken your inner sight. Look at me and keep your eyes closed. ”
William's soul listened to the voice of a man she trusted completely. For the first time in his life, William trusted someone again, and for the first time, he believed himself that he could really do something. Fifteen young people in the middle of the rocks looked at their Teacher at one point. Despite the objectively closed eyelids, they could see him smiling clearly at them, feeling as powerful and excited as ever.
Chapter 10
When the door finally opened with a heavy creak, Lin was so hungry and thirsty that she barely raised her head to look at her captor. Cold air and a slight light came in through the corridor, but the figure with the hood over his head didn't have to put too much effort to cover his facial features. From the depths of the hood, Lin's dark, hostile eyes watched for a moment, then the figure crouched and moved two containers toward the girl. Then the newcomer snorted lightly mockingly toward Lin, and in a low, almost inaudible voice, said, "Get together, now it's just beginning," and disappeared from the door with a knowing chuckle. As soon as Lin was alone again, she gathered all her remaining strength to examine the contents of the two vessels lying in the dark somewhere near her. Never before has cold water and a piece of bread tasted so sweet to her.
Chapter 11
Success has always been predictable and expected, but the Man has never been able to cope with failure. When he hung up, he was furious, though of course he didn't let the caller know his feelings. It was all the more boiling in him now. With an angry movement of both arms, he dropped everything on his desk at the same time that got in his way. With an angry shout, he cursed all those incompetent slackers, with whom, unfortunately, he had to inadvertently have something to do with it from time to time. When the world in which he lives can no longer be perfect, at least those who work for him are perfect. How can he rule when he has nothing to lean on ?! He has to get the boy no matter what.
Chapter 12
Kate Sloan didn't have the best day today. The alarm clock decided not to ring, all things were deliberately changing their usual places overnight, and the bus, which ran with all its might, closed its tin mouth deliberately just in front of it, and Kate stood at the bus stop all out of breath, ruined, looking at another "really good "It could still start raining," Kate thought, and only the thought flashed through her head, the first cold drops of the August rain falling on her surprised shoulders.
"Okay," she smiled helplessly, "we should," and ran under a small green papundekel canopy near a standing Chinese spice shop. The stubborn sky decided that Kate would not come to work in time today, and she resigned the idea a long time ago. She stood there reconciled to the fate of the outsider, watching the passing cars make their way through the gray curtain of the now fairly decent downpour, and the occasional walkers with umbrellas bounced between the bubbling pools as if playing a shot. Once two hop and turn. Something happened in that that changed Kate Sloan's outsider life once and for all. As she watched the pantomime of the street, for a moment her attention was drawn to the vague impression that a relatively large shadow had cast into the side alley behind the roofs of the tallest house across the street. She sharpened her gaze in that direction and opened her mouth in surprise, and as other things happened, Kate never seemed to close her mouth again. From the opposite roof, about ten other (yes, now there was no doubt about it) people gradually plunged headlong into them, and, which was completely unbelievable, none of them ended up on the pavement as a gift for the coroner, but as each other. they picked their "fall" relatively smoothly and landed in a quiet alley below them in a slight forward bend. Kate Sloan instinctively pulled a camera out of her bag, and the puddle of no puddles ran to meet a sensation that not only the New York Visitor remembers.
Chapter 13
The first thing Switch saw after a long time was a small, fire-lit cave that now seemed more than expected. He was very weak, so it gave him a lot of work to raise his head and look east. All he could see was a blue, lush, cloudless sky. Switch realized quickly, so he smiled slightly with relief. He was back. He was in the Nest.
Chapter 14
Lin clicked a few clicks of the lock and the creak of a heavy bolt with the man's words about his future existence, and she became really afraid. The coveted air of the outside world re-entered, but he brought no good news. On the contrary, he brought with him four sinister figures, which was somewhat exaggerated given the prisoner's condition. Each pupa grabbed one of the girl's limbs and they pressed her hard against the cold floor. Then a hand with a syringe appeared, which drove Lin's adrenaline all over his body, because the syringes had always been terrifying. The four strong men had no job of overcoming the weak girl's uplift, and so Lin felt the sharp point of a needle penetrate the skin of her forearm and the flow of a body of utterly foreign matter disappear into her bloodstream. Through her teary eyes and spinning colored wheels in front of them, Lin saw that she had been lifted off the ground and carried away from her cell by an arched corridor with beams on either side. However, she did not imagine her escape from the black space like this.
Chapter 15
Maximilian Wecker was a contemplative boy from an early age. He never knew his parents and was raised by Aunt Frances, who had nothing to do with France, as it might seem at first glance, but above all was not Max's real aunt, which was clear from the fact that the boy she adopted was white. and Frances was a purebred black woman. Max's contemplation was evident from the first days. As a small child, he disassembled everything that could be disassembled. So Aunt Frances kept her hands on him, sighing, "My little boy, whatever you are, you're going to take everything apart and never put anything back together." As Max grew, so did his interest in understanding the essence of things, so he read all sorts of manuals, encyclopedias, even dictionaries, manuals and solved technical drawings. As the other young men stood at the gym, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl's nudity through a small window of the girl's locker room, Max sat in the attic of the house they lived in, his aunt's combined blender disassembled in the smallest screw. The blender was the first more complicated thing Wecker put together again, which pleased his aunt immensely. Not that Max didn't like the girls, he just hadn't met one that really caught his eye. Until once.
He walked with his typical swaying step toward the school library, where he carried back several titles that no one but him borrowed when he was ripped from his dream world of screws and power lines by the piercing squeak of car brakes. He jumped in confusion and knelt on the pavement, but he was not the one in immediate danger. Less than ten meters away, a crash rumbled and a green sports bike flew through the air towards Max, along with his unfortunate driver.
At that time, for the first time in his life, Max discovered his presence of mind and called an ambulance from the nearest payphone. He then had to tell the police about the incident and went to the hospital on his own initiative, visiting the hospital the following month and a half. They never really started anything together, whether it was Max's shyness about the fairer sex or for some reason the girl's side. But even then, Max Wecker began to love Lin Chang.
Chapter 16
It took about fourteen days for the members of the training group to reach where they were now. They stood on the edge of a ledge, and below them was a depth of three meters and a green mountain clearing below. Three meters is not enough for you to kill yourself, but enough for you to get really good when jumping on your head. William knew that too, and honestly, what was to follow was goosebumps. Everyone knows this mixture of joyful anticipation and doubtful fears of "What if?"
During the previous fortnight, the students had perfected the technique of disconnecting the inner body from the material body, and when they felt at home in that, they were to learn to connect the outer body again and learn to control it. Today, they should try to jump into space, try to overcome fear, and endure their outer body with the help of an inner one, at least so that the dive will slow down to a tolerable level. This exercise caused students great problems. Overcoming one's own fear means stepping towards victory.
And William wanted to win. He concentrated all his energy on being able to maintain the state of interplay of energies reached at the top of the ledge even at the moment of the jump. "Come on then!" Shouted the Teacher standing in the clearing below them, and William jumped. But he was too focused on how big a task he had before him, how much chance he had, that he wanted to be the best of all and fly down like a bird for the first time, that he couldn't keep his mind empty enough and focused enough on the state of being in which was located. The hard impact on the green carpet literally took his breath away.
Chapter 17
Herbert and Sylvia were sitting in a fast food restaurant and visibly well. Sylvia giggled, and Herbert stared hard at her kind eyes, letting himself be intoxicated by her closeness. Because it was three o'clock after midnight, they were the only customers of a company called Hero Snack Burger. A lone salesman stopped flipping through a catalog of erotic videotapes and yelled at the two who had long since arrived, "Go home and vote, we're a decent business here." "Yeah, and you're the most decent here," Herb countered, but he rose quickly. , because the fat man must have taken the hint too personally and intended to roll towards them. They ran out into the street laughing, and Herb tried to take Sylvia's hand.
Maybe it was the enthusiasm they had for each other, maybe the noise of the night city completely dulled their senses, in any case they didn't hear the slowly arriving black van, from which several figures in black robes jumped out and grabbed the couple in love and pulled them into the car. the scene unfolded so fast that not even the few passers-by noticed it at all, and if they saw anything, they certainly didn't realize what had happened.
Otherwise, however, there was a young woman with a camera standing in a dark corner of the adjacent passage. She jumped into her dark blue Ford from the 1980s and set out to chase the black van. After all, she won't miss the only two members of the Brotherhood, which she managed to follow here after their morning jump.
Chapter 18
Switch received exemplary care in the Nest, based on ancient Asian procedures. Twice a day he had to drink a strong bitter decoction of mountain herbs called kao tui, mountain blood or rock tears. In addition, he underwent a special Indian therapeutic massage, where the patient is first smeared with oil. On a special table, he is then massaged in various positions with bags of cloth (filled with rice pudding and soaked in a warm milk decoction with herbs). These procedures are performed by the Helpers, who are the least visible but absolutely essential inhabitants of the Nest.
The nest was formed sometime 3,000 years ago in a secret place in the mountains very far east of painful New York as a refuge for poor villagers who had nowhere else to go. It has served its new purpose for about 25 years now. Several Teachers, with the help of their friends, built a large rock city. In a place where there was nothing but a few caves carved into the rock and a suitable place hidden in civilization from civilization, everything that was needed to hide and teach the members of the Brotherhood now worked.
At such a place, Switch were now to meet, one of those who had been released into the world of confusion and restlessness after training, and William, a representative of a group of those whose Teacher had only helped to find their own shape and direction.
Chapter 19
The last time Max came out of a high-rise building, Max was the first to go. From the morning Lin was abducted, he had a kind of zeal, a desire to do something. Whatever he was thinking, he had no idea how he could figure out where Lin was and how to save her. It must have been a coincidence and the two got close to each other again.
But when he jumped that rainy morning, they were still a few days and several hundred kilometers away from meeting them again.
Max threw himself off the roof, and because he was upset, his concentration was much more difficult than ever. Maybe that's why he didn't pay much attention to the flight itself and managed to observe the near and far surroundings and saw a young woman standing on the other side of the highway. She crouched under the small roof of an Asian shop, shivering with cold. Max wouldn't have paid so much attention to her if he hadn't noticed that when the last of them jumped in, the woman ran in their direction and watched them all the way to their homes. The woman had a professional camera around her neck and took a few pictures while watching. Apparently she wasn't stupid, because she eventually chose Herb and Sylvia from the whole group, who were so worried about the other's sympathies that they wouldn't notice their pursuers, even if she stepped on their heels. When it was the last three, Max made an evasive maneuver. He disappeared with a farewell in one of the side alleys, crouched behind a pile of tossed beer crates, and hung on to Kate Sloan's heels.
It was only because of that that he now overcame his innate fear of something greater than his beloved skate and sat behind the wheel of a former taxi left to his aunt Frances by a suitor who had lived and fed for a few weeks and then never came. My aunt found him and squeezed the taxi out of him.
For the first time in his life, Maximilian Wecker watched with a car a woman who watched a criminal van with his battered Ford for the first time in his life.
Chapter 20
Lin Chang suffered in an unbelievable way. Under the colorful haze of drug mists, all thanks to the injected injection, she could feel her being carried into a small room that looked like a simply furnished office. As they tossed her into a small tattered rickety chair and left. Due to the drug, she could hardly move, the places after the handcuffs burned and itched her, her whole body was like rubber, and there was no shouting for help. Then someone came in. He stood for a moment near the chair with the girl and looked at her. It took an incredibly long time for Lin to turn his head in his direction. He was a bald middle-aged man, dressed in light linen trousers and a polo shirt of the same color. He almost looked like he had come to golf. "What… from… .. me…. Do you want to? ”Lin muttered, her rubbery mouth. "What ... from…" Colonel Stodman approached the girl, gripped her jaw between his thumb and forefinger, and examined her face from all sides. "Every time they exaggerate, the zealots squat."
He took a few steps and turned to Lin. "You're here to tell us where the Nest is," "it's a whole and absolutely simple thing," "and I guarantee you, little girl, that you'll tell me."
She put two and two together and realized that if someone was able to kidnap her to find the Nest, first it would be no good and second he probably thought there was only one way through Lin. Or maybe just the simplest.
Lin was lost in the past for a moment. She saw herself putting her broken body together after the crash on the bike, seeing Max and her, how her parents hadn't returned from vacation once, because God didn't seem to want it, how sick she was, and how everything had changed when she the leaflet came to the mailbox. As if today, Lin read the inscription behind her drugged eyes: Has your life lost its way? Are you young at least in spirit? Do you want to know the new dimensions of your soul? Do you want to live again? Call our phone number. Max talked to her at the time, because the leaflet reminded him of recruiting for a sect, but Lin called there then and felt that she had done well. For a month she went to Frank's gym at the corner of the 180th and 20th, and she was already changing her life there. In a group of several young people, she practiced various yoga exercises there, and their Teacher, as they were supposed to tell him, also told them various stories and talked to them about everything. Lin was intrigued and once brought Max. He came, of course, only to protect her from "those perverts." In the end, he also won his courses, and when they had the opportunity to go to the mountains for several months to a concentration camp, they did not refuse either.
Lin certainly wasn't going to reveal where the Nest lay, and not to these people at all.
Chapter 21
In the same or similar way as William, more than half of his classmates ended up. They were now sitting in front of their tents, discussing why they had failed their first landing. However, William only took part in the call. Over and over again, he thought back to the small ledge, wondering where he had made a mistake. He knew he wanted power and that he was too focused on success to do the exercise itself.
After discussing his attempt in detail from all sides, he came up with an idea that he knew his Teacher would surely reject immediately. This is mainly because the plan involved was too, too dangerous. But William had already made up his mind.
He got up and apologized to his friends that he hadn't been able to go to the bathroom in all the excitement, and he headed for the places where they went to bounce. However, when he disappeared from sight, he changed direction and instead went to the rocks, which were far beyond today's training rock. His cheeks burned as he penetrated the sharp twigs and also with excitement and determination. He was about to do something that no one had ever tried before. He decided that the low height they were trying to pounce on today was just a small internal stimulus for students to be able to concentrate and tune in to what was important at the time. However, if he tries to climb rocks the height of a multi-storey house, he should not have the slightest problem concentrating on the activity he is doing.
As he passed the last trees of the forest, in whose preserve he had no idea, the other young adepts of the doctrine of working with energy and flying lived in peace, a strong wind thrusting his first proper field. He threw a warning in his face that the elements here in the mountains had infinite power, at least infinitely more power than a nineteen-year-old, albeit with above-average abilities. However, even this warning was ignored by the young man, and his steps stopped at the highest point of the windswept rock. He stood straight, full of self-confidence and a desire to transform his inability into a qualitatively higher state of being, a light linen garment slapping in all directions, and his dark brown curly hair licked his forehead and ears like dark tongues of fire. William stared into the distance, at the great highway of the heavenly districts, where clouds floated like pirate ships, and at the cold sun that stood there like Napoleon, small in size but with the potential of the ruler of everything. The young man knew that it was a lot, that it was more than ever than ever before in his life. If he fails to descend the depths beneath him, no one will ever find him and learn of his foolish act. And if he can do it, no one will know, because he can't tell anyone this. He concentrated his mind so that no thing around disrupted the flow of energy inside, detached the inner body from the outer and realized this disconnection, then grasped the whole surface of his inner body his body and like divers donning a wetsuit made it an integral part of it, but still he perceived it separately. He directed the flow of energy over the edge of the abyss below him, raised his outstretched arms above his head, and without a word bounced off and jumped headlong to a depth of a hundred below him.
Chapter 22
The black van made its way almost ruthlessly through the half-empty streets of the night city. A relatively heavy rain started, and the vibrating wipers regularly divided the outside weeping world into a colorful kaleidoscope of neons, traffic lights, and water curtains.
In addition, the rain made it very difficult to chase Kate Sloan's Ford, as the engine blew hard at the unusual high revs and sharp changes in speed, and now he still had to overcome the worries of a sudden change in weather conditions.
Third in line was a yellow peeling cab carrying a bulging Max, his nerves straining to burst. This was partly so that he wouldn't lose the roaring blue sedan in front of him, and partly because he was afraid that the woman would lose contact with the seemingly fresher black van in the front.
When the disjointed shamrock got on the highway, everyone could rest for a while. The kidnappers knew that they had about two and a half hours of quiet driving in the right lane before having to exit the highway, and the pursuers calmed down to find that they could easily get lost in the stream of cars around them. But maybe they calmed down too much, because when the van turned, Kate, noticing a shallow hit on the radio, and even more so, Max, watching her brake lights, had to do something to make it to the descent where the peaceful four-lane ride ended. And the persecution has begun, when those in front must not have the slightest suspicion that someone is watching them, and the pursuers must not lose sight of those in front. Now the real struggle for the abductees has begun.
Herbert and Sylvia lay bound on the floor with gags in their mouths, looking at each other worried about their fate and each other's. They didn't know about Kate Sloan following them. All the less so about Max, who, rather than thought of Lin than them, began to hope that the kidnappers would lead him.
Chapter 23
Under the old man's feet, pebbles crunched lightly on the path that led around his lavish house. The man was walking on a cold morning, puffing a great blend of Virginia tobacco from Brazil and North America from his Dunhill pipe, which gives the tobacco its original sweetness and freshness, Burely's tobacco, which adds fullness, all complemented by Modern Cavendish - seven types of tobacco that add a slight acidity to the blend. . The stubborn heaven, which did not intend to wet the Man's branded suit Ede & Ravenscroft (they also dress the British royal family), was a pleasant backdrop for sorting restless thoughts and planning further steps to be taken to the intended goal. The old body, still proudly erect, was supported by the old gentleman with an ivory wand. He walked past the laurel hedge, stroking large, fresh leaves with his free hand. He always reminded himself that everything important around him was life, that he must not forget that, despite all his power and the deeds that lay behind him in history, he was still just a man.
He pulled a small silver cell phone from the inside pocket of his suit and dialed a secret phone number. On the other hand, in addition to the obedient "Yes, sir?", The sound of the engine of a large car traveling at a relatively high speed could be heard.
The man smiled at the imaginary eyes on the other side of the phone, spoke for another few tens of minutes, "Let both cars think you don't know about them!", Folded the phone, and slipped it back into his pocket.
Chapter 24
Colonel Stodman mastered his work well. Lin Chang was 100 percent determined to die rather than indicate in any way the secret place in the mountains that Stodman was convinced existed. But the colonel had experience based on his many years of service in the CIA, and as he put it, "he has already forced bigger tough people than Lin to speak."
After several days of starvation, beatings, and the presence of obscure drugs in the blood, a person is so weakened and resigned that he no longer has the strength to defend anything. However, Lin was a tougher nut to crack than the colonel had expected, so the former agent had to increase his persuasion caliber.
With a rather annoyed look on his face, he placed a small electric shock device in front of Lin. At one end, he unwrapped a long, unimaginably weak wire from the holder. With the words "so dear lady, and now you will tell me what I want to hear!" Lin stretched the frightened wire between the two teeth so that the cold metal landed on the sensitive gum. When the colonel put the first burst of current into circulation, Lin knew that information would not be the only thing she would not keep because of the terrible pain.
*
Chapter 25
The dreadful terror and terror that completely overwhelmed William right after he jumped off the rock made him scream. Tears welled up in his eyes with the suffocating cold and dizzying speed he reached immediately after the rebound. William was drenched in cold sweat, and all the hair on his body bristled as his body could not cope with such a borderline situation.
Then the young man gave up his fear. There was no other chance, so he tried to use it. He closed his eyes and fully focused on his jump, on his stay in this state, on the movement that should result in flight. Independent controlled flight of a person without the help of any devices or aids. Only with the use of air currents, body work and energies that the rest of us have forgotten to perceive. William plunged deep into a world where the SELF ceases to be me, but becomes a new energy. Energy sliding through space like a leaf, which no longer wanted to be part of a tree, but a separate unit of being independent of nothing. Not even on gravity.
He didn't notice his body or the direction it was going. He tried to slow down the immense speed of free fall and to control himself so that he could get from the vertical to the horizontal. The last thing he felt were the branches whipping in his face and the cracking of his own bones. Then nothing.
Chapter 26
The maneuver the black van performed in front of its pursuers was completely unexpected. When all three cars stretched into one imaginary line, the kidnappers' car was at its end, ie in a sharp bend to the right. Reassured, Kate Sloan kept her distance, realizing a little nervously that she was probably playing not only the role of the persecutor, but also the persecuted. Max Wecker had never watched anyone before, which resulted in a large number of errors. So Kate was more worried about the taxi behind her now, and Max himself had trouble chasing as such that the violent action of the black van had left them both completely unprepared. Her driver pulled the steering wheel to the left while cornering, turning the heavy car toward his pursuers in a single moment. He immediately shifted several gears uncompromisingly, rushing at full throttle to meet the surprised Kate and the shitty Max.
Chapter 27
(what's going on with poor Lin ……… right now ..)
Although it wasn't the right time, Max thought of his kidnapped girlfriend. But if Lin knew the danger Max was ……. The oncoming van greatly frightened the stunted Kate, who immediately pulled the steering wheel into the fields. The dark blue Ford Cortina danced in a group of several passionate half-brothers and, with his passenger and driver, threw a lot and gave her several directives with a steering wheel and other blows to the roof and side window. Kate was fainting.
Hovering in the clouds, Max's eyes widened at the black danger rushing at him at about a hundred miles at that moment, blinking his left eye at the Ford's maneuvers in the field and pulling the steering wheel in the opposite direction, directly against the gravel embankment. The old cab crouched down, bounced off the massive feathers of the shock absorbers from the ground, and flew toward the clouds.
The van's wheels were ordered to brake and obeyed immediately. But gravity was still pushing the car forward at considerable speed, so it whizzed past a flying taxi, swirling the dust of the road behind it.
When the taxi finished its takeoff, a massive fall awaited him. Max bit his tongue and the strong pain woke him up. He turned the steering wheel back to the road and returned to the action.
The van, meanwhile, stopped nearby and two men with automatic weapons ran out. The first spray showered the coughing Cortina, and the screaming Kate was voluntarily tipped out of her door into the temporary shelter behind her car.
Then everything was like a slow silent film for Kate. Bullets bouncing off the car door panels, a blue-gray sky and clouds sliding uncompromisingly, a beaten taxi, and a young man jumping up from it, whom she had probably seen somewhere. His hand under her arm pulling her into the cab, the door, accelerating and then ……… ..
Chapter 28
Colored wheels ran on the ceiling of the cave, and music sounded like a colonnade. The two violins rippled to the tones of Franz Lehár, and little William ran around his mother in denim shorts, bouncing merrily as he imitated a white-drawn carriage with spa guests.
Then William woke up and tried to sit up with a sharp breath. The hand he wanted to lean on didn't listen to him, and he fell back on the bed. Suddenly, everything came to mind. As he went to the rock and then jumped, as he failed to turn the fall into a flight, then the trees, and then nothing.
There was a cough at the other wall in the cave. William realized he was not alone in the room and looked in that direction. A young man with shaggy hair sat on the same bed where William lay, smiling amusedly.
"So you woke up. That's enough, you're pretty famous here now. Everyone is talking about you. Some want to kill you and others are already inventing a monument to the hero. I just have no idea which there are more. Yeah, by the way, my name is Switch. "
Chapter 29
The Bell 206L3 helicopter watched the entire scene from a distance. Masked men from the van fired several kilograms of ammunition into the escaping taxi, and when the fleeing car did not stop even then, they ran back to the van. She didn't start for a while, leaving the inexperienced taxi driver and his faint passenger enough time to create the necessary lead. That was enough for the helicopter pilot. He smiled, shook his head in disbelief, and walked back to the safe hiding place of the gray-blue sky.
Chapter 30
After a few more kilometers of frantic driving ("what if they caught up with us"), a structure resembling a smaller ditched church with two other ground-floor structures adjoining the main building from the side in the shape of the letter L emerged from behind the trees and the somewhat quieter Kate. U, densely covered with surrounding vegetation.
It was uncertain whether the kidnappers were heading right here or just passing through, so Max suggested moving a little further to give the impression that the place didn't attract their attention and then hide the car somewhere in the bushes and walk back. If the kidnappers pass, they can always go after them, and if they have already found their destination, at least they will not suspect that they are wandering around.
Kate Sloan had a potato-shaped bulge on her forehead, and her jaw probably popped out of its hinges and came back, making Kate feel that someone had assembled her cheeks with hot screws and was now letting them cool slowly. As for the plans for the next moments, she basically agreed with Max. First, because she couldn't think of anything better, and second, because there was no time to come up with something perfect.
Aunt's taxi roared into the thick bushes about a quarter of a mile from where the church stood, and Max hoped that if they still had to use it to pursue, the car would be able to get out of its rest area again. They drove into a swamp that was not visible from the road, and the front wheels quickly sank some ten-fifteen centimeters into the bay.
Chapter 31
Dozens of pairs of heavy boots choked on military-style camouflaged helicopters with regular blows of reinforced soles. The impatient pilots were almost in the air when a heavy side door slammed behind the last passengers and machines not unlike hulking insects peeled off the ground. The cold morning sun shone on the meadows below, and the steel beetles beneath them cast huge huge shadows that swallowed the carpets of swaying daisies. Far where their destination awaited, the same sun warmed the frosted slopes of the mountain slopes, searching the cold rays with cold rays. And the shadows, as if foreshadowing the impending events of destruction, stretched their faces beyond the horizon.
Chapter 32
A veiled figure aimed in the air at the five-meter-long rock eye that formed the entrance to the cave, which served as a marodka's room. The arms outstretched in front indicated the direction of the flying body, and even in this position the man could feel the inner grandeur and dignity. Then the Teacher landed on a short platform, adjusted his ornate robes, and set out for the bowels of the mountain.
William was coughing up a bite that took him by surprise at the time, as he had a story told about the tenth time by Switch about how several members of the Brotherhood had teased several girls in the park. One of them struggled again and again from one of the young men that it would be enough for her to be able to fly and laugh and laugh until the provoked young man got up, detached himself from the ground, and circled a nice wheel over the heads of those below. .
Laughing boys still looked up at him as Master entered. The laughter faded like an echo swallowed by the maw of a forest. "Good morning, lads," the oncoming man smiled weakly and sat on the edge of William's bed. William got up on his bed and looked at the man in front of him with growing apprehension.
The teacher rolled up the hood of his head and looked into William's eyes. "I wanted to talk to you, you know what." The young man nodded silently. "What you did was incomprehensible stupidity," he began, "irresponsibility and gambling with your life. Nothing that concerns prestige and nothing that arises from anger is worth a person's life. Some here in the Nest make you a hero and think that your act is a thing to follow. I met with the other Teachers to discuss how to approach the whole thing and how to close it, and the conclusion is: everyone in the nest here is free, everyone has a choice of how to deal with their lives. Nevertheless, if the Brotherhood is to function as a community, it needs to have certain rules. And your act, William, is certainly out of these rules. So if you want to continue to be a member of our Brotherhood, you need to respect his unwritten rules. ”The teacher got up and looked at the two young men in front of him. "You two, though you probably don't know it yet, have a lot in common." As he walked through the hole in the rock, he put his hood on his head, took two quick steps, and disappeared as quietly as he had appeared.
Chapter 33
Max and Kate walked carefully through the trees along the road they had come here. They both felt exhausted from the long pursuit, and their battered bodies showed their injuries with each movement.
"What are you, a woman?" Why were you watching us? ”Max didn't give it to the penetrating cubs.
"I'm Kate Sloan, a New York Visitor reporter," Kate said through sore jaws. "But you're more likely to tell me what you are. A bunch of flutes that can fly by the way? Or are you some wizard, or what? ”
"Who knows what you saw. You probably had a long night ’.”
"Look, don't be rude, I know what I saw and you know it too. So don't tell me about long nights here. "
"When you think about it," Max whispered, crouching down, grabbing Kate's arm in his upper arm, and pointing toward the church that appeared in front of them. Kate hissed in pain as he squeezed the sore spot and pulled her arm away. But she had already noticed what the young friend was showing her. A black van arrived at the slow pace from the right and turned toward the church. Maybe they didn't mind the presence of a crazy journalist and a snort. On the one hand, they are both unarmed, and on the other hand, the Chinese girl has already spoken anyway ……
Chapter 34
Today, Switch's convalescence was to end in a completely different way than he had anticipated. William's fellow patient was taking a short morning nap, as his tormented body was not yet able to withstand prolonged activity without fatigue. William himself was taken to rehabilitation early in the morning by bathing in a mixture of herbs that accelerated the healing of broken bones and bruises. The other inhabitants of Hnízd were just experiencing a completely normal training morning focused on a slow ascent to a minimum height from the ground and endurance in levitation for at least 10 seconds. The events of the next moments thus caught them completely unprepared.
A squadron of masked helicopters appeared in the unspoiled nature of the mountain range as the riders of the Apocalypse in Eden. Their arrival paralyzed the flowery hills with the same force as the unsuspecting inhabitants of forests, rock overhangs and the Nest itself. Firing missiles strategically sent to perhaps all flammable places in the area fulfilled their intended purpose. Panic gripped everything alive, and so frightened birds flew out of the bushes to death, flying back and forth in confusion, from place to place. The human inhabitants of glades, gorges and rock meshes manifested themselves in the same natural way. The roar of the machines only occasionally allowed him to hear screams or to see figures running around in the wilderness of the ruthless flames and tufts of ubiquitous smoke.
The noise was awakened by a noise that didn't remind him of anything he'd heard to this day. He sat on his bed tidy high in a rock's eye and listened. Then, on legs still too weak, he tried to reach the edge of the cave to look out and down into the valley. Exhausted, he slid his face along the rock face, leaning his right hand against the cold stone. Then the still calm and open eye of the cave entrance wept with three lines of black ropes, and several masked men descended on the short ledge before entering. Switch knew he was wrong, but his body wasn't ready for any attempt at resistance. Several uncompromising arms gripped him, and a rag soaked in a strong anesthetic carried him very quickly into the realm behind the mirror.
Chapter 35
Max Wecker and Kate Sloan could not agree on how to proceed. They both embarked on a surveillance action, watching someone, but they didn't think about what they would do when they reached their destination.
"Herb and Sylvia have been taken in, so Lin will most likely be there, so let's go in and do something about it," Max rushed from the bushes, but Kate held him back. "That you're worth your girl and that you want to save your two friends, you've explained to me several times, but you haven't told me that you want to be killed. "
"She's not my girl at all, take care of yourself, dear lady," Max snapped, blushing slightly.
"If you weren't rude, the girls would just flock to you," Kate stabbed him.
"And if you're worth it, you've been doing something other than writing about ducks in Canada for a long time."
"So you read it?" Kate replied, a little curiously, a little provocatively.
"It simply came to my notice then. You were talking about it when I dragged you into a taxi. "
"Sure. I know for sure what I am saying and what I am not. But now I wonder what we will do, young man. "
"Let's go," Max ended the conversation and climbed out of the bushes, followed by Kate, who was trying to hold him back. Crouched, they ran in the shadows of the trees so that they could not be seen at first sight, and at the same time they fought together whether they would go forward or backward. Their tugging on their hands, elbows, and clothing was interrupted by the crack of a shot, and the bullet burrowed into a cracked branch leaning next to Max's ear. Max was terrified, and Kate cried out weakly, and they both instinctively lunged for the tree whose branch had just saved Max's existence in this world. Several more shots made it clear that the attackers knew exactly where their targets were hiding.
The situation seemed clearly laid out, and the outcome in the form of two limp bodies lying in the shadow of a tired maple seemed most likely. But at that time, the observer ceased to be an observer, and a small sports helicopter emerged from behind the trees carrying salvation on board. The machine gun fire helped the young man and the journalist to safety, provided by a pile of rocks, and the two men he had landed nearby had already worked to rescue the three young people inside.
After a while, the shooting and screams were replaced by a relaxing silence. Herbert's voice, heard from around the corner of the building, sounded like a paradise to Max, half-mad, "Come out, you hero! It's all over. "
Kate stuck her head out carefully and looked around, as if death could still bark out of nowhere. Then they both got up and walked toward Max's friends and their mutual rescuers. They learned that the helicopter had been sent by Master to them. No one knew where he got the information on the kidnappings or the surveillance. But that was already growing in Max's concern. He saw that at the main entrance to the complex lay a tied bald man in dirty linen trousers, the other assailants were, according to the rescuers, dead, but Max was missing one person.
Chapter 36
Max walked down the corridors and rooms of the complex in a desperate attempt to find Lin. He stumbled against blasted masonry and scattered pieces of furniture, peering into every dark corner. He finally entered a room furnished like an office. The helicopter pilot knelt behind the fallen table and leaned toward something on the floor. Tears welled up in his eyes as Max, whose gut tightened like a loop of rope on the convict's neck in an instant, forced his legs closer. There, in the midst of the confusion, disorder, and destruction, lay the helpless girl he cared most about in the world. He forced his weak legs to walk up to her in an instant and slumped to his knees. Leaning on the pilot's shoulder, he experienced such a powerful emotional and nervous storm that he thought his body couldn't stand it. He didn't know if his stomach would hold the sight of Lin so terribly humiliated and miserable that he could never have imagined her. At the same time, he felt such a strong need to embrace her and hold her in his arms and protect her forever from the whole world that he was surprised by the feeling.
"Come on, young man, so I don't have to raise you two here," the pilot said, smiling at Max. "Don't worry, she'll be fine, just a few doctors will have to look at her."
"My God," Max said, and unable to bear such a large portion of feelings, he got up and ran out of the room. And as he ran through the corridors, his unbelievable footsteps roaring beneath his feet, he wished to be anywhere in the world, only for God's sake, terribly far from here.
Chapter 37
The city received the refugees from the mountain slopes quite kindly. The attackers did not intend to kill, and so the wounded, even without harm to their health, were transported to civilization and left to their fate.
In a small unplastered brick cafe, Teacher and one of his students, William, sat by a large window, talking. Teacher comforted William over a cup of hot coffee, trying to explain that the situation might not be as hopeless and disastrous as it looked.
"The most important thing is always the situation, not the external, but the state of things in your soul. If you don't let circumstances engulf you, no one else can. Let the bad thoughts come, but let them go as well. If you harbor anger or sadness, you do not allow your soul to live. Don't think about who has the right to something, who can do what, who owns the world. Your world belongs to you and no one else. If you sit here and breathe, you have everything you need for life. And let the love of what you love triumph over anger at people, things, or situations that have hurt you. ”
"But it's not possible," Will said dissatisfiedly, "everyone who has money, acquaintances, property, has power. And what happened to the Nest is proof of that. It is proof that these people can do anything. That everything will work out for them. That nothing will stop them. Not people like you. "
"Property belongs to life as well as property," the man said with a kind look. "People have or don't have. But this distinguishes them only slightly. People differ the most from how they handle their life situation. Problems do not escape any of us, but only bring someone to their knees and force them to get mad at everything and everyone around them. And we all have a choice. You too at this moment. "
"Why did you actually want to talk to me, wasn't that the reason, was it?" William looked up from the table and looked at his Teacher's blue-gray pupils, hiding things that the man hadn't talked about for a long time.
"No, that really wasn't the only reason I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to talk to you about the day you climbed the rock and jumped into that depth. "
"Why return to it. I made a mistake and learned the sounds "Will looked annoyed.
"It's not what you did. It's about what I did. "
William looked at his Teacher quite surprised and incomprehensible. The context that was to come to light in the next few moments should have surprised the young man even more.
"When you were sitting a short distance from the others and thinking about your failed attempt, I watched you from afar. Then, when you jumped out and went to the bathroom, it was clear to me that you were going to do something serious. I followed you and saw your determination, in every step of your way it was possible to observe that you would not return the same as before. I was wondering what to do. At the same time, of course, I was careful not to see me, you would think that I was watching over you like a little boy… "
"Isn't it?" William smiled.
"Well, actually a little, but admit it, it was a boy. I hid a short distance from where you stopped, and when you jumped, I threw myself behind you. I was just worried about you. "" I helped you choose the leap, directing the power where it was needed. But not until I started to feel like you could kill yourself. "
"So I can't do it," the student said sadly. "If you hadn't helped me, I would have been a mess."
"You did it yourself." "Just," the man paused for a moment, looking somewhere through the glass window into the distance that ended somewhere in the past, "I just felt debt and responsible."
"Against me? I don't understand, "Will didn't understand.
"You know, William, you should know something about yourself. It should actually be happy news, but it's such a difficult situation for me that I probably can't give it as happy. The fraternity, as you know, brings together and helps young people who have some life difficulties and most of them have no or dysfunctional family. "
William stared at the men at each other. "But I don't differ from them in that, I don't have anyone either."
The man, who had once embodied strength and perhaps all the inner balance of the world, was now gripping the edge of the table a little convulsively for himself, and William seemed to be hunching over a little. He couldn't look the young man in the eye, and although he'd tried the moment a thousand times, now that it was here, it was about a million times harder. When he finally decided to react, he turned his gaze to the young man in front of him.
"When my first son was born…"
"You have …?"
"Please don't interrupt me now." for a while… "" I reacted cowardly then, I wasn't ready for something like that…. "" I ran away from the woman I lived with and came back after two years. "" I promised to stay forever and it looked like it that we will function as a family and… "
"I don't understand why I do that at all."
"And then our second son was born… .. and I ran away again and never came back." Suddenly, Teacher got up from his chair and threw his jacket over his hand. In the confusion that prevailed in his mind, and therefore in all things around him, he looked around the few faces in the room, as if searching for a fulcrum, his eyes darting from the rising Teacher to his hands lying in his lap and the world around him. ceased to be dimensioned.
"Just before he left, the teacher turned to the table for the last time with a pained expression on his face and said the only thing he could still say at that moment. "Find the Switches. And forgive me. ”And then Teacher left the cafe as empty as the morning city could be, and at this moment so full of all that suddenly seemed to be born out of emptiness and struck William deep in his heart and in all his essence, shaking him. until then, an unclear and incomplete existence in the foundations.
Chapter 38
It was dark when the Switch awoke from the intoxication, so that the objects around it barely surfaced. Still dazed, he sat down on the bed on which he lay, trying to orient himself in space. In this he was frightened by a quiet voice from somewhere in the middle of the dark room, which shattered from space like the moon from behind the clouds.
"I'll explain everything to you."
Switch jumped in fright. "Who are you?" He asked, trying to see the face of the man who spoke.
The old man sitting in his chair flicked the switch, and a dim light flooded the room, revealing the Man's sharp profile.
"Why am I here - and what do you want from me?" The young man fired.
"I spent a lot of money getting you to where you are. So I can talk to you. "
"And you couldn't talk to me without the theater around? All you had to do was come and say, "Hello, young man, I want to talk to you, do you have time?" "You didn't think that, did you?" "At least that's what normal people do."
"Shut up and don't interrupt me," the Man said in a low but firm voice, then began to speak.
"I have as much money as I ever wanted to have and I bought everything I could think of. When I couldn't have something good, I took it badly. Such is my nature. And it's the fault of this world, not mine, that this is how it works and works. But now I am an old man, and a man of this age will recognize when his time is approaching. And then he starts to take stock and look for things he still wants to say - let's say. "
The man paused for a moment, looking into one of the dark corners of the room. Switch was still sitting on the bed, watching the man in front of him in disbelief. The man really fit into it all. Even in the twilight, the house looked ostentatious, displaying its uniqueness, its exclusivity. The character of things reflects the character of the people who use them. The man returned to his contemplation, half addressed to the young man in bed and half to himself.
"So I tracked down the guy who left my daughter with two little boys around her neck in an apartment she didn't have. She renounced me and nothing could force her to overcome her pride and go live with me or at least get help. She didn't survive the filth and poverty, and I never forgave the holocaust. ”There was anger mixed with regret in the old man's voice.
"And what has that got to do with me?" took advantage of Switch's pauses. But the man, as if he could not hear him, continued.
"He started an association with a couple of similar people and started" helping "young people. But I think they tore them away from reality and didn't help. "
Some things were starting to clear up for Switch.
"And before you start asking the meaning of why I'm telling you and why you're here today, I'd rather tell you myself. Besides, I managed to track down the eldest of my daughter's two sons, and that's you. And I wasn't going to watch them destroy you too. I let you be attacked, believe me, you wouldn't go otherwise, and I planned to take you from the hospital to me and explain everything to you. And I also decided to put a stop to his association, which “."
Switch was already boiling in Switch's veins. "So for some nonsensical selfish personal reason, you had me killed, destroyed the Nest, and smashed everything we believed in there?" What was able to keep us afloat and bring us back to life? Sure, we learned things from ancient doctrines there, and often they were things that went beyond common comprehension, but that didn't mean they were bad or useless. If I understood correctly, our Teacher was the one for the alarm clock you were talking about and my father for the other. And this person who gave us all hope and strength to live is of no value to you as a person? So you had to break everything he was trying to do? I admit that as a father he was disappointed, and I will have to deal with it myself, but as a person he is largely a role model for me. And no one will take it from me, and not you at all. "
The next morning, a luxury car drove the Switch away from that Man's mansion through a wrought-iron gate. Although the two had a lot of blood in common, their destinies and natures were so different that it was unthinkable for them to have any relationship with each other. At that moment, something definitely died in the old man without being fulfilled.
Chapter 39
This was old Kate Sloan again. She slammed the door on the "snotty sexist bastard," as she had just publicly called her boss, and ran out of the New York Visitor building with her tousled hair and broken heel.
"I'll give him photomontages! I will give him close meetings of the third kind. Nerd one. Let him keep chewing on his stinky cigars and let someone else crawl up his ass. Not me anymore. ”Kate Sloan, now a former famous New York Visitor reporter, a slice for garbage collectors and taxi drivers, set out to meet a new destiny with her own vigor.
Chapter 40
After a few days in the hospital, Lin looked a little better and agreed that they could allow visitors to enter. The first was already standing outside the door. For the first time in his life, Max brought flowers to a woman and he really cared. When he entered the door, Lin watched him with eyes other than before. She knew from the police what had happened the day she was rescued and wanted to ask Max something important. But Max was the first to say, "Hi, so how are you?" Do you want to be better? ”He asked, setting the flower on the bedside table and moving the chair to her bed.
She smiled at him and nodded. "Max, I want to ask you something. Can I? ”
"Why can't you ask something? Ask what you want. ”Max sat in a stool, looking at Embarrassed, Lin, huddled in white duvets.
"When they found me, you know, they said I was in a terrible state and stuff and I wanted to ask you, well, I just want to ask, if you saw me then, was he there?"
Max remembered the scene almost immediately. Impoverished Lin lying on the floor, the floor bearing traces of the torture Lin had to undergo. Max knew what Lin was asking. And he also knew he couldn't tell her he was there. That what he saw was the scariest thing he had ever seen in his life, but that he also realized what was important to him in the world, or who. It will show her differently if she wants to. And then Max answered "No" and knew he could forgive this little lie without remorse.
Chapter 41
For someone who thought he was alone in the world, finding a family member is like being born again. But they were both too full of their own feelings to deal with, so they agreed to give them time. They needed to compare all the events of the past days, weeks and years in their heads and find their place in the world. And start thinking about the new Nest, bring together the members of the Brotherhood, and live again as before. But that's all a different story. There are places where some stories end and others begin. We are in such a place now. We're on the roofs. On the roofs of the world, where water is bubbling in wild streams and trees are swaying in greeting in the mighty wind in their crowns. Where people have always bowed to the powerful deities of nature and tried to merge with their energy. On the roofs of cities, where people look into the distance and hope to find new hopes. They hope to find themselves.
Epilogue
Switch sat on the concrete floor of the roof of the house in which he lived. He wasn't thinking about anything. He let his thoughts drift slowly, and the bloody sun, which shone through the twilight, gave the whole scene a hypnotic touch.