C11 08. The contract

The first thing I realized when I opened my eyes was that I actually had a good sleep.

A small hospital room, bright and clean, medical devices beeped quietly at the side, and the needle of an IV stabbed my left elbow.

But my mood was immediately spoiled by the straps that went around my wrists, waist, and ankles. Ha-ha-har-har! I’m chained to the bed. In the last few days, after that very decision to end my life, that very life seems to have taken offense and decided to give me a little tour of the places where it’s easy to earn gray hair ahead of time.

But it didn’t take long for me to be alone, the screen parted, and a terrible nightmare came into my peaceful morning idyll.

“Are you awake?” Rizor Cirkul sat down on the chair next to my bed. A look of serenity on his face. It was as if a close relative had come to visit his niece after her appendix had been safely removed.

I met the president’s gaze in silence.

“Why did you try to throw yourself out the window?”

I tensed up, wondering what to say, and whether I should answer at all, but...

“I wanted to die,” my lips whispered these terrible words.

Cirkul frowned his eyebrows, causing a pronounced wrinkle on the bridge of his nose, which was popularly known as a ‘worry crease’.

“Why?”

There was sympathy in his voice? Really?

For the first time in my life I was asked the reason for my action, someone cared about my feelings, but the very realization that this person who had shown participation was the president sent my insides into a hideous shudder. I didn’t need understanding from the enemy.

“I wanted to kill you.”

The president hovered for a few seconds. I secretly hoped it was because he was shocked. I wanted that even my words would get him in a mess, since I couldn’t take him to the netherworld for company.

“Commendable honesty,” the crease between his brows smoothed out, and wrinkles appeared around his eyes, as if he were laughing. At me?

“I wasn’t going to joke or lie. I really expected to blow you up with me.”

“And you didn’t even care that innocent people might have died?”

“No. They would have died at some point anyway. Ten years earlier or later, whatever difference does it make? In our country, death is freedom.”

“I don’t like your reasoning. Are all young people so categorical these days, professing pessimism all the time?” Rizor raised the corner of his mouth in a bitter sneer.

“And you won’t ask me why I wanted to kill you?” I ignored his question and returned to the sore subject.

“Every other resident of Unica is waiting for me to die, and they all have so many motives,” the president said with a smile, seemingly proud of this fact. “Well, what’s yours?”

I suddenly realized that I had been looking at humanity’s number one enemy with my mouth open up, amazed at the way he spoke about his ‘popularity’ among the people, so I quickly pressed my lips together and squinted.

Tears came to my eyes at such an inopportune time. “You stole my world, my family, my friends, my Virtul…”

“You, too?” Interrupting the beginning of my fiery speech, the president tsked, infuriating me with his indifference.

“If I get another chance, I won’t miss it. Next time I’ll really kill you,” I promised myself out loud, staring with hatred into Cirkul’s eyes.

The man looked in response, studying me for a long time.

“Okay,” he finally moved his unblinking gaze from my face, scratched an eyebrow, and continued as if nothing had happened, “I’ll give you that opportunity. In three months I’ll find you, and I’ll let you choose how you kill me,” he said with a faintly ironic smile. “But would you be able to do it? Would you be able to kill a human being?”

“Yes,” I answered without a shadow of doubt or remorse. I was enjoying this conversation more and more, the absurdity of which was off the charts. ‘Is my consciousness still in the grip of sleep?’

“Well, I like your persistence,” he glanced at my face again, and then grew serious. “What’s your name, child?”

“Alecto.”

He laughed back at me.

“Unforgiving divine erinia, full of endless anger? The joke’s not bad, but there’s no truth in what you’re saying,” the president showered me with frosty contempt. “I learned everything about you, girl. Your name, your favorite music band, the name of your neighbor’s cat. I know it all: the color of the diapers you were changed in the maternity hospital, your score on your third-grade math test, the state of your body and soul.”

“And why do you need so much useless information?” I asked with a wicked grin, freezing inside.

“Now you are bound to my son,” Cirkul stretched out his hand, almost touched the collar that had been choking me for hours by its existence. “I have nothing more dear than my son. In this I will be honest with you, as you have been honest with me.”

“And you’re not afraid to tell me this? I may hurt him to get back at you.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” the president put his fingertips together and sat up straight, like he was not having a conversation with a suicidal crazy girl, but was attending an important business meeting. “I’d like to make a deal with you.”

I snorted, not believing my ears. “I don’t need anything from you. Just let me die in peace.”

“Since you don’t want anything, I can threaten your relatives.”

I didn’t have to force the grin out – it slid onto my lips.

“It’s no use, my mother died a long time ago, my father... when he heard your announcement about the closure of Virtul, he went completely insane and drowned himself in the bathtub with a toaster in his hands. You have nothing to offer me. Nothing to intimidate me with, either.”

The most hated man in my life moved a little closer to me, with a burning look in his black eyes, he breathed out heartily, almost in a whisper, “In exactly three months, I will give you the opportunity for revenge. But in the meantime, you must follow my instructions, you must protect my son.”

“Bring back Virtul.”

“No. That’s out of the question.”

“Well, it was worth a try,” I grinned mirthlessly. “Then why should I believe that you would keep your promise and let yourself be killed? Maybe you’ll kill me yourself when I become useless.”

“You were going to die anyway. But I won’t lie to you about it. I give you my word that I will let you kill me any way you want. In exactly three months.”

“Are you terminally ill?”

“No,” the president smiled sadly.

“Are you experiencing lingering depression? Bored with life? Why would you want to die in three months?”

“No reason. But I see it’s the only way I can come to terms with you. I need a couple of months to finish what’s left.”

“I don’t fully understand...”

“Wait ninety days – that’s the price for your revenge. In three months you will be able to fulfill it. But all that time you have to be near my son, until we figure out how to get the bomb off you.”

My soul was in turmoil. I had a vague idea of how I was going to kill the president, and I didn’t know if I really wanted to do it at all. Now I wanted to go home, to my favorite garden gazebo, where I could find peace and timelessness.

I also wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, my carotid artery was being squeezed by a death device that could wipe out half the city at any moment, and I didn’t care about it very much. I cared more about the future of the three months in which I was to live side by side with a stranger.

“So what’s your decision?”

I looked again at the president. I had nothing to lose, nothing to gain. The only thing that had emerged was the ghostly goal of vengeance.

But I wanted to avenge not so much for myself as for my mother, who died before my eyes.

I leaned back on the bed, pressing my head into the pillow, clenching my jaw until it hurt, trying to fight back the still invisible tears.

“Okay, I agree.”

‘In exactly three months, just three months, I will kill you, Rizor Cirkul...’