quirky and unnatural contortions so as to shun their pain at least a split grain of it… to dodge… to feel it less for half a second…

no room for hope… it will be pain and only pain… pain… pain… till the very end… o were it nearer… but nearer it can’t be… there’s no time… it’s meaning gets annihilated where each moment is an eternity of pain…

no room to move… this immobility deprived of death… pressed in between unyielding walls of pain… a helpless powerless subhuman overcome by Pain… your cruel Master…

impossible to move a limb when having none at all… all your possessions stripped away… replaced by just this feel of pain…

you’re nothing but a captive… a slave… a crushed plaything of your excruciating Master…you are immersed… engulfed and squashed by the immeasurable pressure in the unfathomable abyss of pain…

eeeee… how it pains… eeeeeee…

* * *

6

There was no chewing gum in the blue wrapper which V picked up from the table in the Uncle Tom’s Cabin before Sally brought meal for him and 2ic taken away already.

Only back home V got it what namely his companion was texting about by flailing his eye-lashes the moment before he was arrested. Even conveyed in an unknown code, the message clearly indicated the dropped stick of chewing gum. Which wasn’t there. The wrinkled wrapper contained a little flat lamina of memory card.

V checked it with File Manager in his Debian system to find just 2 files in that 2TB card. A .txt file that 2ic, presumably, referred to as “ transcript” and a folder which, technically, is also a file containing further files. This one was filled with an endless mess of audios in Vorbis format.

A couple of them clicked at random played back thru the black speakers one and the same impersonal flat drawl of artificial reader, unnaturally distanced and sexless voice-over. V didn’t bother to tweak the pitch or tempo in robotic diction, or choose a dialect from the long list of options, he just left it as is. Moreover, the statements—the stuff was too haphazard for a story—were hardly keen on disclosing who they belonged to: a male? a woman? a snotty kid?

Yeah, at times there sure happened telling cues. A macho wouldn’t complain of a too tight bra sillily donned in the morning. Or wouldn’t he? Smack bang midst heated struggle for self-awareness, and militant tolerance activists you never can tell. Anyway, life is a supreme bitch at surpassing the weirdest sitcoms, the guy could have his reasons for wearing a bra. Besides, since some time there appeared a personal feeling by V of belonging to sexual minority of those previously called ‘straights’ whose section diminished so precipitately. Damn priests! They had started this avalanche by their ardent canvassing for missionary position when having intercourse. Way back folks just didn’t give a fuck about hows-and-whys in these matters before the clergy brought it up.

With a sigh V switched over to the thoughts_004.txt file. The endless stream of poorly punctuated lines of 174,326 words, 973,160 characters. It seemed, 2ic was right in calling it a transcript and, very possibly, the text presented same thing as the audio files from the neighbor folder. Hard to say though, who in their tandem originated the hen-egg dilemma.

Still, it didn’t look anything like a super story readied to make V a glamorous lighthouse above the choppy sway in the pulp fiction ocean. It looked like mumbling to oneself in Leo Bloom manner responding to the hallmarks in his long and winding journey on June 16, 1904.

It surely seemed a transcript of thoughts but of how many contributors? Were they in any way interconnected? Who thought what? At times you did felt like being carried by the same, say, thought-floe before you slipped over to another fragment of different vocabulary, mood, subject. Common to them all though was elusive sincerity, and lack of coherent description of actions in progress. Some fucking terseness. Instead of “my interlocutor plunged into lengthy exposition of his current plans and expectations” it would just say “will the asshole shut up? Ever?!”

But still and yet, some passages did hook you, however strange, and queer, and stuff… V resented the untimely nature of 2ic’s arrest. Arrest? Yeah, 2Bsure. By all the canons of the genre. However, V once again tapped 2ic’s number in his phone, just in case. A mellow female voice once again announced the number was unreachable. V ruled out another conference with answering machine at 2ic’s den.

He switched off his PC, sat inactive for a minute, then crossed the room to the catty-corner. From a black casket-like small box in the desk’s right upper drawer, V elicited a tiny SIM card and substituted it for the one in his phone. Now he had another subscriber identity and number. Just in case…

* * *

7

V never was alone. Never. Even in a crowd of complete strangers did he have someone to get encouragement from, share impressions with, someone who understood him from half a word. Better than any companion was that someone because that was V. Also? Too? As well? Whatever. It was just V. At times they could disagree on some point or another, those 2 V's, even argue, yet in the end a kinda consensus was always reached. V did not give too much thought as to why it was so. He just got used and was quite comfortable with it. Anyway, even the most sincere, painstakingly all-embracing answer to a why-question will merely scratch the surface of the Everest of reasons if at all.

Right now they both were unanimous, Vs, the two in one, and their mutual jaw dropped in bewilderment. They were…(Damn! It grows too entangled and complicated, grammatically, so – back to the orthodox grammar)… His stare stuck to the Philips monitor addressing him:

'Well, V, whenever some smart Alec pops up to blare our that God is dead, the best policy would be to check if the announcer was a certified coroner.'

Some quicksand situation it was aggravated by the fact that V knew his response without scrolling down. It surely was the thought he had some time back, a snippet of the endless yarn he usually spun in his chat to himself.

He rehearsed out loud before to turn the mouse wheel and bring it up:

'The shocking truth, bro V, is I do not give a fuck about any wise advice like yours, whenever facing resplendence of a line wrought craftily, so will you most kindly shut up?'

Yep. Here you are. Tangible enough to feel with your rubbed in nose that 2ic was not kidding. They do know how to write down thoughts from that—what was the word, again?—something like "noosphere", and his, V's, private thoughts got in the common catch. Welcome to the bright brave new world, buddy! He sat back completely flabber-fucking-gasted.

So, that's it. The irrefutable discovery grossed him out. Sledge-hammered. It ran him over by the magnitude of all-pervading implications of what has been revealed right now. The proof still stood up before his gaze stuck to the screen. Well, I never…

The Samsung rang in his jacket's inside pocket. What?! Who could possibly know his new number? The number still used in no calls? He answered.

The moon-like mug of 2ic in the screen looked drawn and troubled. Too troubled.

'No time for talking, V. Just believe me. Run! Right now! You've got 30 plus seconds…'

What the fu… Hasn't he been… The number's compromised? And a whole pack of other thought-fragments shot thru V's mind while—the phone dropped back, the memory card grabbed hastily—he rushed to his apartment door. On the landing V paused, read the blinks of indicator of the elevator—two levels below, climbing up—and closed the door behind him, slow and carefully, no slamming.

He walked up the stairs and stopped on the upper landing trying to keep unnoticeable. The elevator slammed open at the floor just left by V to let thee men of a business-meant demeanor.

They neared the entrance to his apartment. One of them pushed the door ring button, the rest readied their sidearms. The ring resounding remained unanswered too. The man shook his head and produced a neat bunch of skeleton-keys. The door lock clicked submissively, the armed men entered the apartment, the lock tamer stayed back.

Now the hit men will see the switched on PC in the V's study, they will check his bedroom and the bathroom room, empty as well, and then…

V took a cautious backward step…

* * *

8

Where to? In 2 more floors the final flight of stares runs up to the securely latched and padlocked door to the roof. It’s a dead end confirmed by some of a teenage explorers who left their graffiti across the sheet metal in the door sealing the impasse, “Fuck you’re all!” Once V’s had a chance to check the settings after a recreational stick, he felt that time a nature lover awakening in him and ventured for a long and winding trek up. The endless stair flights for 3 floors and not a single water head along the way. He easily could die of thirst that time and emphasized wholeheartedly the other bro sociopath and his legend crowning the deed, askew yet sincere.

It’s a clear-cut trap he’s got into. Calling the elevator provides no way out, the guy would intercept it on V’s floor, step in and go up to hello V with the gat orifice to his face. Seems like the kid’s wish has come true, V was fucked up indeed filled with adrenaline and despair on that landing…

Light tapping on his left shoulder started him to look back. A face encircled with crisp brown locks, the index finger pressed to soft lips in warning, the apartment door ajar behind her back. She moved her head in mute invitation. V followed this goddess ex machina.

They entered and to the door’s click there sounded a female voice from some room in the apartment:

‘What’s there, Leya?’

‘A pizza-delivery boy hit the wrong floor, Auntie!’

‘The kids get stupider each year! Come, close the window, I feel chilly!’ Called out the same voice.

‘OK, Auntie! Just a moment!’

V involuntarily clapped his eye to the peep-hole pressing his palms to the door surface the way you would caress your SUV side when earnestly implored by a police officer touting his gun, “Please? Sir?”

Two men shrouded in complete muteness strangely reminiscent of glass diving bell traversed the landing outside. Their hostilely peeled eyes kept scanning all the quarters while they flicked thru his field of vision.

V turned about.

‘Shh!’ whispered Leya and also turned to walk off in soft steps, echoing panther pliancy, to the nearest room. She didn’t look back to make sure that he follows her example. As though he had an alternative!.

Inside, she dropped her shoulder bag onto a spruce cot and left immediately.

It was a small bedroom of a person who does not care much for decorating. No candy posters appealing to a lover of gory brazenness or, on the contrary, of mellow graciosity. However, the inhabitant was not indifferent to their place and evidently possessed a certain knack for the pop-art presented by a composition produced of computer laser disks (antique! the outdated artifacts!) in the wall opposite the bed. The area about 2 square meters covered with tight, even rows of shiny circles mounted on glue resembled armors of a giant knight or else a panoply for his horse.

The girl returned pretty soon. She closed the door and stood facing him as if in expectation. Her face looked vaguely familiar to V, he did see it someplace yet it was hard to put a finger on when and where. He tried at an embarrassed smile.

‘Hello,’ said she, ‘at last! You've done it!’

The girl sat onto a chair