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“That’s just paranoia. Of course they’re happy, you can see it, and you can cast doubt on any achievement that way.”

“Well, maybe it is paranoia,” Isaac retorted. “But maybe not.”

“Anything is possible, but why do you need me?”

“You’re strong.”

“Are we planning to beat someone up then?” Abdul chuckled.

“No, we’re not, and I hope we won’t have to. I read that you’re a hot-shot mathematician and that’s important for my plan.”

“But just what is your plan, I don’t get it yet.”

“Find Professor Link.”

“And more specifically?”

“There’s nothing specific as of yet. We’ll create the specifics together. We’re going to figure out where Link is.”

“You know Isaac, maybe I’ll regret this later, but ’m going to pass. I won’t tell anyone about our conversation, but as for joining up – I pass. No hard feelings?”

Isaac wanted to object, but Abdul stopped him, raising his hand.

“Until you said something you might repent later, I’ll interrupt you. I’m not interested.

No details.”

There was another candidate waiting for him in the evening.

The door of the bar swung open and out spilled a colorful pair, both pretty loaded: a

husky guy in a bandana and a big, bearded lanky hunk. They were talking so loud that Isaac could hear from twenty-feet away.

“Now that’s what I call a real bike!” said the hunk.

“You bet…. none of your modern garbage. This is a classic!”

“Is that a Harley Sportster?”

“Yep! And not just a Sportster... This is my bro! Even born the same year as me!”

“Okay, cheers, Bikie. See you in a week or two. Going to Trieste tomorrow and from

there to Prague, but the Friday after that I’ll be back here.”

“Ciao, buddy! Smooth riding and no stones on the road.”

Isaac already knew that Bikie’s shift in the bar was due to end shortly. He had read a lot about this guy and didn’t want trouble, so he addressed him in a familiar tone.

“Bikie the Biker… that does sound funny.”

Bikie swung аround and looked Isaac up and down. “What issue do you have with your

face?” he said menacingly. And, after a pause, added, “We can fix that right now. Now what were you saying?”

He leaned down bringing his ear close to Isaac’s face. His stubble almost touched Isaac’s nose, the reek of alcohol was abominable. Isaac recoiled, realizing he had clearly overdone it with a sassy approach. Getting a punch in the face wasn’t quite what he was looking for.

“No, chill dude, it was just a bad joke.”

“A joke? There’s a trauma wing for jokers in the hospital.”

“Sorry. Why don’t we just forget about it, and I’ll buy you a beer?”

“Not one of those queers are you?”

“Hey-hey, don’t you forget about that trauma unit for jokers.”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Bikie guffawed. “Attaboy, I like you. Just don’t forget that the last guy who joked with me went broke with his dentist’s bill. Okay, let’s have a beer, as long as you are paying.”

Isaac and Bikie walked into the bar. Everyone here knew Bikie and many of the customers came over to hug him and slap him on the shoulder.

The shaggy gaunt barman chuckled behind the counter.

“Back to work? Who’s this with you?”

“My beer. A special import, from the land of fools,” Bikie replied.

“Seriously?” Isaac grinned.

“Since you want something from me, you’ll have to put up with it,” Bikie snapped and

plumped down on a chair. Compared with Bikie’s beefy frame, Isaac looked really small.

Not off to a great start, Isaac gritted his teeth, said nothing and sat down beside Bikie. No one had promised this was going to be easy, but Isaac’s enthusiasm for the idea of telling Bikie about his plan kept melting away. The biker seemed too drunk and offensive to deal with. It took all Isaac had not to just slip away.

Seeing Isaac’s sour face, Bikie slapped him on the shoulder and added good-naturedly.

“Okay, won’t do it again. You started it, so I got wound up and enjoyed it. I like taking the piss out of smart-asses and drunken superheroes. When all’s said and done, everyone’s afraid of fucking with me anyway. In real life I’m the kindest and sweetest bouncer in this hemisphere,”

said Bikie, pointing to the right side of his head and cracking up again. “I’ve never given anyone a genuine mauling, though. By the way, this is my private table,” he added, casting a proud glance at his companion.

The private table was small, but right in the very center. There was a large brass plaque embossed with “Elvis and Steve Tyler can sit here without Bikie’s permission.”

Elvis again. “Well now,” thought Isaac. “Sometimes you don’t remember a word or a

name for years, and suddenly it invades your daily life like a virus.”

“I see you’re well-respected here.”

“You bet. I can do more than just make good use of my hands if need be. I once crashed

the bar’s site for seating a pair of freakin’ tourist suits at this table.” Bikie checked himself for a moment and gave Isaac a cunning glance. I’ll listen carefully to what you have to say, just as soon as you bring that beer you promised, fella.”

“I brought a bottle of twenty-five-year-old whisky instead of the beer. I hope you don’t mind that? Your friend…” – Isaac nodded in the direction of the other barman – “won’t object because I brought my own liquor?”

“What the fuck’s going on here?” Bikie exclaimed. “I’ll be damned! Now you’re talking!

How could I mind. Ain’t you from the Society for Encouragement of Good Old

Rock’n’Rollers?”

“Almost,” Isaac replied, pouring the whiskey into glasses. “I used to work as a barman

too. I quit the job last week. They gave me this in lieu of severance pay.”

Closing his eyes, Bikie breathed in the aroma of the whisky and smiled contentedly.

“I’m Isaac Leroy, but you can call me Isaac.”

“I’m Bikie. Well, you know that already.”

They drank to getting to know each other. Isaac told Bikie a bit about his bar and Bikie told Isaac about his, as well as about his Harley, boasting about it and gradually getting more and more drunk. Over the third glass of whisky Bikie began a serious monologue.

“Dude, have you seen the latest Ducati? And the Honda? And the Harley? They’re all

almost identical now! Sure, they look real heavy, but they’re all the same shit. The Goddamn creeps are repressing our freedom of choice! Where is my choice? I want to make the fuckin’

choice myself! I don’t want to mount a Ducati by mistake when I’m wasted! And the music? All the lousy DJs play the same thing! I’d kill them all. How could they possibly fuck up their life so badly?”

Bikie spent about ten minutes cursing the Agency and its standardized technologies. What outraged him most of all was the almost complete loss of variety, even for the most primitive things, there was no choice at all.

“Those who have downloaded their OE have it even worse. God forbid I should ever turn into a Veggie,” said Isaac.

“Well, even when they were alive the Veggies were all but stupid fucks,” Bikie snorted.

“No, you’re wrong there. My friend sold his creativity for love.”

“That's like cutting your dick off for love ‘cause it didn't get hard at the right time.”

Isaac tried to explain to Bikie about Pascal, but Bikie said he didn’t watch TV serials, read political newspapers, and didn’t listen to stories about stupid fucks.

“Listen to this then, will you! I almost became one of them, I just happened to be lucky, or unlucky, I don’t know.”

Isaac began to tell Bikie his story.

Bikie tried to listen carefully, but his head was gradually drooping and he was dozing off.

When Isaac finished his story, Bikie raised his eyes, looked at him and said slowly.

“I propose a toast to… Elvis! For making an effort! To his resistance!”

Isaac had been expecting a toast to Vicky’s health, to his own story, to anything at all, but no way for the crazy hobo.

Spotting Isaac’s expression, Bikie cleared his throat and added:

“For rebellion and to Elvis! And we’ll drink to you too now, boy.”

“To Elvis,” said Isaac, raising his glass.

“I vowed long ago to destroy this evil, and you came in very handy. To have enough balls for fighting these days you have to be mad as a hatter or really, truly tough. As for me, I’m ready to fight and I will!”

And Bikie wacked the table so hard, his glass hopped up and broke.

The Collective Mind Agency reacted fairly calmly to the protest demonstrations, which in time petered out almost completely. Violations of the law were a matter for the police and the Agency tried to keep out of things and not participate in any open conflicts. People who had been cured of fatal illnesses came out voluntarily in support of Collective Mind: they and their relatives were the Agency’s most aggressive supporters, often showing up at meetings of protesters with poster saying: “You are advocating our death”.

The relatively harmless attack carried out by Mr. Elvis-Henri was stridently branded an

“act of terrorism” by the press, which discussed it for a whole week. The flames of interest were fanned by the site of the crime – calm, respectable Monaco, which in former times had hardly ever figured in the crime reports.

When the Department of Orange Energy of the Paris police received the summary

investigation report of the Monaco incident, basically no one took much interest in it. Only Commissioner Pellegrini, as the head of department, was obliged to familiarize himself with the document, and he started leafing through the file. A standard case of an attack carried out by a solitary fanatic. Boring.

Pellegrini’s father was Neapolitan; his mother was a Frenchwoman from Bordeaux. He

was born and grew up in Paris, but he considered himself an Italian who had inherited the character traits of both nations. When necessary, his rapid, impulsive, Italian-style gestures coexisted quite comfortably with his subtle French tact.

Pellegrini’s face seemed rough-hewn out of heavy granite, with powerful cheekbones and

a large forehead. The broad stripes of the bags under his small, brown eyes lent his face a masculine brutality and intense astuteness. The deep folds on his slightly sunken cheeks and around his mouth created the impression that his mind was constantly engaged in strenuous thought. He was tall and stately, and his bearing made it clear that he was an ex-army man.

Pellegrini had served in Africa for a long time before coming to work in the Drug Control Department of the police.

He worked very efficiently and could have become the department chief, but it didn’t happen.

But despite everything, he did eventually rise to become the head of the new, prestigious Department of OE. Now everything was sure to change. Pellegrini thought he could really spread his wings and show everyone what he could do… How very wrong he was.

Six months later his friend Gautier downloaded his creativity out of patriotic

considerations. He tried to persuade Pellegrini to go along with him and other officers. He pictured to him how they would have a wonderful life by the sea, somewhere in Bordeaux, while their creativity would continue working for the good of their homeland and the world. Pellegrini refused: he had realized his dream at least in a new department with such a promising future, and he wasn’t willing to abandon with his new position.

Initially, Pellegrini’s work had been interesting and new technologies made catching

criminals easy. But pretty soon the Agency grew so powerful that Pellegrini’s job became pure routine. And not only his job, but practically all police work.

Pellegrini read the report of the attack without much interest, thinking that it would be good to feel the tenderness of the southern sun right now. He decided to take a trip to the scene of the “notorious terrorist attack” while the tracks were still fresh, while there was still something to delve into and someone to talk to. He phoned the Monaco branch of the Agency and asked them not to touch anything, explaining that he was on his way to conduct a

supplementary investigation.

Isaac woke up close to midday. Despite his thirst and the hangover pounding at his

temples like a sledgehammer, he got up quickly, for he was too hyped up to keep still. He downed two glasses of water and felt better. The adrenalin from yesterday’s successful meeting flowed back into his bloodstream again, arousing a pleasant excitement. Isaac prowled round the apartment like a lion in a cage and couldn’t really get to do anything.

Bikie didn’t show up until one.

“What a dump,” he grunted instead of saying hello.

“What?” asked Isaac, puzzled.

“I said, you live in a real dump.” He paused for a moment and added: “Seriously, Isaac, it’s like I just walked into my own place.”

Isaac rewarded his irony with a wry grin.

They walked over to the computer, which was already switched on. Isaac opened a file

and showed Bikie the database. Bikie whistled.

“Oh, wow! Data bases are my soft spot, my true love,” he said with a hint of smugness. I see a data base, get inside, find the weak spots and crack it.”

Bikie plumped down on the chair in front of the computer and ran rapidly through the list.

“Ah,” he said disappointedly. “Nothing needs cracking here.”

Isaac took the mouse from Bikie, moved it to find the cursor and explained that the data base was useful for finding accomplices. It was where he had found Bikie and he had seen other people in it who thought like him. Isaac explained about Wolanski and the other candidates. He felt too embarrassed to mention the girl though.

Before Bikie had even heard him out, he was hammering on the keyboard and digging

through the social networks.

“Look at this dude Charles. A bit older than us, from a family with deep pockets. Moves in the highest circles, no problems with money. Yes, I remember, I remember,” he said, once again interrupting Isaac, who was trying to say something. “You’ve already set your sights on this what’s his name – Wolanski. But check it out – this guy’s got a Harley. He’s one of us, and there’s an excuse for getting to know him.”