The convoy turned west from the business center, unhurriedly heading toward its destination. Four cars and the limousine between them stood out against the city’s usual appearance: they did not hover, moving along the asphalt on wheels. On their black armored bodies, golden intertwining serpents devouring their own tails gleamed. Their exhaust pipes emitted no smoke. These shielded vehicles released not the slightest radiation, and the tinted windows completed the picture of absolute privacy.
The Family owned a fleet of antique works of art from the Old World. Technicians serving the Barjoni had thoroughly modified these rarities, bringing them in line with modern standards and improving them in every way for the masters’ safety. The wheels could retract at any moment, and the anti-gravity units could lift the convoy to rooftop level, significantly reducing travel time by moving directly.
But that would mean disregarding certain traditions.
Enrico’s golden eyes unhurriedly scanned his son’s message. Carlos and Elina had not quarreled; it looked like a serious relationship was developing, and both intended to spend their holiday by the sea, though not at a Family hotel. The desire to live a simple, rustic life without attracting reporters’ attention was understandable, though he would have felt more at ease if his rebellious offspring were under the supervision of professional guards. Too often, to his taste, Carlos’s life was threatened. With the ongoing changes, Iterna and the outside world were gradually becoming less peaceful.
A flawless finger moved, typing a reply on the platinum terminal about the upcoming purchase of an antique camera. Carlos wanted to bring him back into his life, and father and son were learning to rebuild bridges cracked through Enrico’s fault. Everyday small talk was gradually drawing them closer.
A sob broke the silence, and the eyes caught within Ouroboros rings lifted to the source of irritation. A tanned woman of about thirty in a gray business suit had her head bowed low, nervously fiddling with the hem of her skirt. In the photographs in her file, she looked attractive, but now dark strands hid her face, and tears had smeared the makeup.
To her left, right, and opposite sat the Family’s mercenaries. Tall, with well-developed muscles, they all wore strict red-and-black business suits. Their eyes were covered by bulletproof displays styled as sunglasses. Whatever they thought, the soldiers of the Funeral Brigade gave the distraught woman no more attention than a bug, except for Kador, openly amused by such obvious weakness.
Enrico himself sat in the back seat. Dressed just like his subordinates, he was distinguished only by the family emblem crossing the red fabric. Three and a half meters tall, the product of the Family’s bioengineering possessed not the slightest imperfection. From the symmetry of his eyes to the absence of scars and the strict patrician cast of his face, his body breathed health and energy even when he sat motionless. His black hair was cut in a short style — a concession by the designers to his preferred look, which added charm to his bronze skin.
“Please, don’t touch my...” Judith Navara dared to speak without lifting her head.
Before this, after the meeting and on the way to the car, she had not uttered a word.
“Calm down.” Enrico’s subcutaneous implants colored his nails blue.
“You can beat me before... before...” A swelling bubble of snot burst under her nose. She wiped it on her sleeve. “I’m accustomed to beatings. Give him mercy.”
Kador stopped grinning, having lost interest in her vulnerability.
“Wipe yourself. We’re not animals.” At a gesture from Enrico, the bearded Joed Datz handed her a handkerchief and gave an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Does your husband beat you?”
“No,” she said hastily. An indignant note crept into her voice. “Yerai and I bore the punishment for our mistakes together.”
“Mistakes? Late payments?”
“To some extent,” the woman admitted. “In Pearl, it’s considered fine form to repay a debt to patrons ten days before it’s due. Otherwise, they consider themselves insulted. Sometimes we... couldn’t manage it.”
Enrico grunted. His nails turned red.
Foreign workers from among the Normies of Pearl constantly came to Iterna. Strict health requirements, a clean criminal record, and proven work experience forced many candidates to take out loans, purchasing the necessary qualifications back in their homeland. Various extortionists subsequently bought up their debts, blackmailing the temporary workers by threatening to expose the scheme and demanding many times the original amount for their silence. Desperate people, finding themselves in a terrible situation that threatened to ruin their future, were then hooked, persuaded to commit certain crimes: smuggle a trinket across the border, forge documents, photograph schematics at a factory, invite a gangster on a family visa...
Those drawn into crime were no longer let go, forced to commit more, until the police inevitably caught and deported them, and the cycle restarted anew.
Criminals inevitably hunted families with children for such schemes or those who had relatives outside Iterna; it was easier to pressure them and ensure the intermediaries wouldn’t be reported. Enrico ran his gaze over Judith’s flat stomach. Her file mentioned that her elderly father had been hacked to death with a machete and displayed on the main road last year for the attempt of civilians to self-organize and help the government restore order. Her husband had no kin.
That was why she had dared.
“Where are we going?” Judith exhaled through her teeth.
“To Guillermo.”
“Why?” She turned white, hugged herself, and began to tremble convulsively.
“In business relations, respect plays an enormous role.” Enrico put away his terminal and pulled on black gloves, clenching his fist to stretch the leather. “Boorishness repels clients. A customer is more likely not to return to an establishment where cockroaches scurry across the floor. Do you follow my reasoning? No one dares steal from the Barjoni. For long-term prosperity, parasites must be eliminated.”
“Parasites.” Judith’s shoulders sagged. Her upper lip stopped trembling, and she looked at him with tear-filled, red eyes full of pleading. “My husband and I wanted to have a child. Now that won’t happen anymore.”
“Getting a divorce?”
“It’s no place for children,” she whispered. Her hand slid to her skirt, pressing it tighter between her legs. “No place at all. I beg you, he knew nothing. He is loyal. Let him be.”
“That’s for HR to decide. I don’t stoop to micromanagement. Silence.”
Judith bit her lip in response to the driver’s knock on the dividing glass. The convoy slowed, stopping near an unsightly warehouse on the outskirts of Baal. Resembling a convex cylinder half-driven into the earth, the warehouse was rented by a law firm, which in turn sublet it cheaply to a small foreign shipping company as a charity for tax deductions.
The local company’s business was not going well: clients complained of slowness, and the warehouse was constantly closed for inventory. They did just enough to stay in the black. The plan was childish, but for now it worked. However, the police would inevitably uncover it in the future by matching the number of guest workers having committed crimes with their connection to the firm. Generously sponsored by the Cartel, the law firm could probably emerge from the case with an untainted reputation. Mistakes happen.
But not all are forgiven.
The convoy stopped before the entrance. The doors opened, letting out the mercenaries, and Joed darted toward a worker in a white T-shirt sticking his head out. The man didn’t have time to squeak before he was dragged inside, pinned to the wall, and his hand reaching for a pistol was intercepted. Joed put a finger to his lips, nodding toward the incoming crowd. The guard swallowed and relaxed, raising his hands. The mercenary patted his cheek.
From the narrow hallway, stinking of beer and cheap cigarettes, stairs led up, blocked by an iron grate that closed off the way to the office floor. Enrico headed there; behind him, surrounded by a squad of mercenaries, trailed Judith. The drivers and four soldiers remained outside, ready to warn of any change.
Blond Kador ran up the stairs, vertically raising his arm. The guard behind the partition didn’t even have time to cry out, so swift were the slashes that ripped through the metal. The figure in the red business suit burst into his booth, balancing on the toes of expensive shoes and settling right before the camera monitors, mockingly studying the stupefied man with red, bloodshot eyes. Kador courteously tilted his head, shifting his gaze to the alarm button, and the guard twitched to raise the alarm.
The man let out a thin howl, shaking his hand with a now-limber index finger dangling loosely on severed muscles. Enrico entered the corridor, turning left, while Kador lashed the guard across the lower jaw. The guard’s head jerked, his brain bounced off the skull’s side, and he sprawled in the chair with a concussion.
Enrico proceeded through the empty offices, noting the cargo packaged for delivery by courier service. Outsourcing upon outsourcing. The local Cartel branch turned out to be far more pathetic than he had assumed. The incompetents couldn’t even maintain a basic cover story. With a kick, he flung open the door to the accounting department, which lay before the director’s office.
At least, it was supposed to be the accounting department. Desks had been carelessly dragged to the walls, some lights had burned out, and the light flickered in the slightly open refrigerator. Workers loitered around the room, joking and drinking cheap booze. Chairs stood in the center of the room. On one, a tanned, forty-five-year-old man in a truck driver’s jacket sat hunched, clutching a cap in his hands. Opposite, sitting backward on a chair with her arms resting on its back, was a woman with two crowbars wielding bruisers behind her. With false sympathy, she patted the driver.
The stuffy atmosphere and open space naturally unnerved supplicants. This room had been deliberately soundproofed. The brazen stares and the absence of street noise added panic, making the supplicant feel alone among callous beasts. In such a state, the weak-willed agreed to anything just to return to a familiar setting, realizing the full gravity of their situation only later.
Circus tricks. The Barjoni operated far more refinedly.
“We take care of you. But your stubbornness complicates everything. Just unload the goods where we told you. Then you’ll spin a story about a robbery, and we’ll forget about the accrued interest. An hour for eighteen of your annual salaries! Isn’t that robbery?”
“You don’t understand,” the driver said in despair. “The navigator stores the route map. If I deviate or destroy the device, they’ll know.”
Enrico’s keen nose caught faint traces of blood and rotting tissue, in addition to the expected smells of urine and sweat. Meat. Partly animal and, to a lesser degree, human. Here teeth were knocked out and limbs broken for persuasion. The morons hardly killed anyone right here: disappearances attracted police vultures, and the local riffraff didn’t look smart enough to outwit them.
“Sounds like your problem, buddy.” She smiled a flawless smile. She reached out and patted the seated man on the side. “Figure something out, or we’ll have to find another way to recover our investment... Hey, how the hell did you get in here, faggots?!”
She jumped to her feet, hiding behind the backs of the bruisers. Enrico outpaced the mercenaries, obeying an itching sensation in his temples. A fire seemed to ignite under his skin, spawning hundreds of tiny hands tearing him apart from within. With the edge of his palm, he snapped the crowbar in the stunned bouncer’s hands, and the subsequent slap drove the woman’s face into her skull. She dropped a compact submachine gun. Falling, the weapon fired, startling all the workers present.
The extortionist crashed into the wall, slid down it, and whimpered. She clutched her face with both hands; through her wide-spread fingers, fragments of teeth spilled. Her cheekbone cracked; the bone pierced the skin, nearly scratching her terrified eye. Blood flowed profusely down her neck, staining her blouse and soaking her pants.
Not a scrap of flesh or dirt stuck to Enrico’s glove.
“Any more takers?” he asked coldly.
The second bruiser dropped his crowbar and raised his hands. Finding the room filling with a squad of mercenaries, the bandits displayed no wonders of courage: they willingly parted, handing over pistols and submachine guns. The weapons hadn’t been acquired legally; they were assembled in makeshift workshops, which affected the quality. The almost imperceptible curvature of the barrels guaranteed poor accuracy.
No battle was expected here. A mercenary crouched beside the maimed woman, forcibly moving her hands aside, and set about treating her injuries. Judith swallowed loudly, casting a bewildered glance at Enrico for the first time. The truck driver dared not stir. Joed leaned over to him, whispered something in his ear, and Kador tossed him a can of beer. Having caught the boss’s mood, Joed quickly moved behind him, leading Judith by the arm.
The three of them stepped into the office.
A crack of lightning greeted them, painting the room blue. Enrico stood before Judith, ready to accept the challenge, but the light was already fading. Dancing blue sparks were vanishing under the skin of a heavily tattooed man standing by the desk. Instead of ink, his tattoos were rendered with a method banned in the country: liquid metal had been embedded under the skin, merging with the flesh. As his power was used, images of hurricanes, a rising sun, and skulls against a backdrop of tombstones glowed brightly.
The Abnormal pressed a hand to his heart and hastily bowed, offering his neck. Beads of sweat evaporated at his temples.
The air conditioner maintained a pleasant coolness in the office; the floor was tiled in gray; to the left stood a cabinet with drinks and crystal glasses. The warehouse’s disorder did not touch the director; his papers lay in strict order; the single window was positioned to cast a shadow from the person seated in the comfortable leather armchair onto the visitor, and the sturdy oak desk and a tasteless painting in a gilded frame, capturing Guillermo in exquisite furs standing victorious atop a slain bear’s head and bathed in heavenly rays breaking through storm clouds, completed the atmosphere of ostentatious luxury.
Guillermo folded his hands together, not rising to greet his guests. His natural tan had lost its former intensity in Iterna’s moderate climate. Dressed in a gray suit, with gold pins studded with diamonds securing his tie and the corner of his pocket square, he was of average height. In photographs from before his arrival, his face had been crossed by scars, but here he had undergone cosmetic surgeries that removed the disfigurements and restored his broken nose. His brown eyes swept over the trio and glanced behind them. His gaze darted to the bowing bodyguard, and his thin lips twisted.
“Enrico,” he said. “What is the reason for such a forceful visit? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to discuss matters via the Net?”
“You tell me. It was my birthday last week.” Enrico approached the desk, running his fingers over the surface. Sturdy wood. “The Barjoni are not vindictive. We won’t quarrel over trifles. That you didn’t congratulate me, didn’t send gifts in thanks for our tolerating you on our territory... Such trifles matter no more to us than an accidental shove in a crowd. If the Cartel wishes to go its own way, we won’t hold the leash.”
“How... magnanimous of you. Then why burst in on me?”
“We always answer insults.” Enrico fixed his gaze on the little man. “Your guards were not informed to let me through. You dare to address me by name, without the respectful ‘Mister.’ Tell me, Guillermo: does the Cartel consider itself equal to the Family?”
“Let’s not get carried away!” Guillermo stood and extended a hand for a handshake. After waiting a couple of seconds, he moved toward the drinks cabinet. His furious glance shot in Judith’s direction. “The fruitful cooperation between our organizations brings both sides decent profit. Let’s forget about any cat that might have run between us and drink to your health. As you said, trifles are meaningless, so why quarrel?”
“Some time ago, an attack was committed on Academy students in Morningstar.” Enrico circled the desk.
“You profited from our blunder...”
“The Cartel disregarded the agreement to cause no disturbance in Iterna. Money loves silence. I value peace and security. A shootout, the intervention of the Archangels, a stabbing, and an attempted kidnapping do not fit my understanding of respect for the deal.” Enrico spread the blinds, glanced outside, where loaders from another company in their part of the industrial zone were loading goods for the Reclamation Army, and closed them.
The tattooed bodyguard tensed.
“I had nothing to do with that mess,” Guillermo said irritably, pouring cognac into glasses. “My area of responsibility concerns more civilized business. Why bring up the past?”
“That unpleasant incident did not touch the Family directly.” Except for the wound inflicted on a friend of his son. The Matriarch had had to spend hours convincing Enrico not to stage a massacre. “But today, a recently hired bank employee came to us. She was subjected to blackmail to force her to pass information about civilians to outsiders.”
“Enrico, Enrico...” Guillermo set the decanter back with a clink. “I’ll be frank. We legally acquired little Judith’s debt obligations. That possibility was stipulated in her contract. She stopped managing the payments on the obligations she undertook. Given that she is no longer in tip-top shape, classic methods of compensation were impossible. We offered her civilized options for solving the problem that did not involve the loss of body parts. An unpleasant situation, I admit. But the choice remained hers. Besides, for the Family, this is pocket change, and the least you can do is turn a blind eye to such trifles, considering...”
Joed whistled.
“If my employee insulted you or borrowed from you, you should have come to us.” Enrico whirled around, advancing on the flustered man, still holding the glasses. “We would have paid compensation, writing it off as a cost due to a personnel department miscalculation. Judith should never have been hired into the Family’s business. She is a liability.”
The woman bowed her head, squeezing her eyes shut as if unable to break free from a nightmare.
“Then we’ll gladly take her off your hands.” Guillermo smiled, placing the drinks on the desk. “The one exposing the Family to threat will disappear, and we will be happy to render you this service. We’ll consider it an apology for unintended slights.”
“The Family does not shirk responsibility. You dared far greater idiocy. No one steals from the Barjoni,” Enrico concluded the sentence.
Enrico thrust his hand forward, grabbed Guillermo by the lower jaw, and slammed his head against the desk. The drinks spilled; the writhing man clutched at his wrist, trying in vain to break the grip. The hand dragged him forward across the wooden surface, mercilessly pressing down on his skull. Reaching the edge, the hand dragged him back, leaving bloody streaks.
“Enough! Enough!” Guillermo screamed.
Fingers sank into flesh and crushed the skull. The top of the Cartel representative’s head reddened. He struck at the unyielding hand, causing it not the slightest discomfort. The implants injected yellow into his nails. The itch inside Enrico heated to an inferno; he kept the gangster’s bodyguard in sight, but the latter made no attempt to save his master. Judith covered her mouth with her hands, seeing a scrap of ear drag along the reddening surface after the head.
“It hurts! It hu-urts, Enrico! Let go! Let me go-o-o!” Guillermo broke into a screech. “I’ll pay! Ple-e-ease! It hurts, it hurts!”
A crack resounded in the office. The gangster jerked wildly, rolling his bloodshot eyes. Saliva poured from his mouth, his breath escaping in ragged sobs, and he mooed incoherently. The pressure and friction did not cease. The skin on his head swelled between his fingers, lifted by the bones. Finally, Guillermo grunted and stretched out, jerking all his limbs as if shocked. The hand descended fully and touched the desk. The itch subsided.
Judith screamed quietly, collapsing to sit by the door and biting her own hand. Her face turned whiter than milk.
“Clean this up.” Enrico withdrew his hand. No traces remained on the glove or clothing: blood, brains, and burst eyes did not stick to the fabric. “Piggy was never here. Sell the organs to the Ravaged Lands. Contact his employers and inform them they are purchasing the warehouse; the Family will accept it as compensation. Tell the guest worker in the next room he saw nothing. His debt is no more.” He swept his gaze around the office. “There must be a way to derive legal profit from this.”
“Sir.” Joed nodded.
“And... what about us?” asked the bodyguard.
“Deliver all packages under the concluded contracts on time. Do not accept any more orders for now until restructuring.” He eyed the Abnormal. “Get a proper shirt. That goes for the rest as well. If your tattoos cause an infection, the cost of treatment will be deducted from your pay. Recovery from today’s injuries will be covered.”
“Thank you for your mercy, boss!” The Abnormal flinched under the icy stare. “Mister Enrico, sir.”
“Why?” Judith squeaked. “Why did you do that? I’m nobody!”
“Exactly. If the Cartel has grown so arrogant as to dare spoil relations with us, using an insignificant pawn for a trivial profit, then their pretensions will recur. So why should we lose a loyal pawn? A bonus awaits you. If they bother you again, report it. You are expected at work tomorrow. And I recommend not delaying motherhood: with age, women experience complications in childbirth.” He walked past, pausing at the door.
Judith stopped biting herself and sat breathing heavily, opening and closing her mouth.
“Need a lift?”
In the limousine, Enrico removed his gloves and ceased paying attention to the frightened woman. First she cries, then she’s afraid. A strange creature. Did she really think the Barjoni could fail? He picked up his terminal, answered Carlos about the photo of a hotel room they had found, and checked messages from his wife. Their daughter had gotten into a fight again at the Academy, having challenged a freshly arrived “oddity.” He rested his chin on his hand, pondering what to do. At her age, he had never hurt the opposite sex or engaged in senseless bullying. Drugs, racing, drinking, and nights of passion had occupied all his thoughts. Where did such cruelty in her come from? What had he missed? Maybe she lacked attention? But entering the Academy was her idea, and teachers praised her involvement in helping students with extra classes.
Well, at least the newly arrived trainee IK-97 wasn’t hurt and wasn’t pressing charges, turning the whole incident into a joke. Enrico planned a talk with his daughter and assigned the intelligence service to find out the boy’s tastes. He needed to smooth over the misunderstanding and make sure no one would bully the kid.