To walk into Central like I did that day was to ask for trouble. First off, my hands were in my pockets, I was wearing a silly silver scarf—with sequins—and, most important, I was gliding backwards while imitating a claxon. An old lady was there to report something, in the waiting room. I locked eyes with her as I passed her by, her fat ass overflowing from the ducky yellow pastic chair that struggled to support her.

  “Honk honk,” I elaborated before continuing my reverse march, leaving her staring befuddled at the uniformed man wearing a glittering scarf, behaving like a silly goose that moonwalked. The luster applied as a deterrent for the good Samaritan granted the perfect dancefloor to practice my antics up to Klena’s desk.

  With robotic movements I stopped in front of her and held her stare. “Hello Klena. Honk.”

  “Be honest with me: did you cheat during your psychotechnical test, Saon?”

  “No, my degree of anti-social behavior —a Master’s, if you were wondering— was determined to not result in an impediment to perform my job as a Retriever. The traits people normally recognize as a psychopath’s are useful for the job of recovering souls from hardened criminals, Klena. My medical record clearly states I have antisocial personality disorder; I cannot lie about that. Besides, I only lie to people here to annoy them. There’s little benefit in going around telling lies to fellow cops and investigators. I weight those things as carefully as the cocaine I sell to school children on the daily!” No rant was complete without dark humor as the final touch, as the cherry on the cake.

  “Okay I know you well enough to believe everything but the last bit. Here.” Still wearing her immutable deep-seated-depression face she handed me a paper sheet with my new schedule printed on it: when I had to attend to which offices to be given particular classes by experienced Retrievers. “Please, Saon, you are now a ranked member of the Retrievers. Do you remember how ranks are assigned?”

  “Yes, but please explain it again so we waste valuable time,” I said with a smile.

  “I won’t entertain that. Remember to respond to Rank A urgency calls from here on onwards and do not use magic against fellow Retrievers, except in self-defense or for educational purposes.”

  I stared at my schedule, interiorizing it like the menu of one of those expensive restaurants that charge more for the presentation and supposed prestige than for the ingredients. Listen to me here: the most expensive food comes out the other end just as brown as the cup of instant noodles I had had that morning. The only difference is that the cup of noodles may randomly decide to go for a mercy killing, as it is immensely thankful for having been released from its preservers-infused life.

  Anyway, I interiorized my schedule, and I had an hour of time to kill, or, as others called it, work to do.

  “Am I expected to go to my office?” I asked, starting down the laborious path to my working station.

  “Pretty much. Your co-workers are already there. And, Saon…”

  I turned to avoid regarding her, and then moonwalked back to the front of her desk.

  “Today is a day of grief for your team. Revekka and Valenan looked very downtrodden, And I felt the same after consolidating my sacromotor. So, while I understand that you don’t, I consider you would be benefitted by being in your best behavior around them. Grief can affect people in unpredictable ways, Saon, and if you mock it, they may snap. Understood?”

  Klena looked at me with her head tilted forwards, a glance that expected my cooperation.

  “You don’t understand my condition. It’s not a judgement I am passing, nor guilt I am placing. I understand people, at a logical level. I know what makes you people tick. In my own way I have learned. Just because I am a king it doesn’t mean that I consider the horse an alien creature capable of jumping over three towers just to kill some haughty priest.” I made a slight pause. “That was about chess in case you would fail to notice unless I called the horse a knight. It’s a horse. Horse. Neigh. Horse.”

  I saluted, the side of a cold finger touching my flawless forehead, and began moonwalking away. It was a short and uneventful trip to the office when you managed my levels of style.

  “Morning.” I saluted without major fanfare, as reading the synopsis of the room had warned me that it bore the ‘tragedy’ and ‘drama’ tags, and whilst I would have enjoyed mocking the first, I wasn’t that willing to humor the second.

  I passed by my fellow Rank A’s and avoided their sunken stares. Eye bags, from poor sleep, from excessive crying. On both of them, but less noticeable in the makeup-laden face of Revvie, that tried to hide her misery and success had told her to not call it: it would call her later.

  I stared at the empty chair besides mine: Nerines would have been there had his wallet not been repossessed. And his body not killed. And his soul (albeit this was mere speculation) not trapped in someone’s motor. Yet, even without speaking with my peers, I could notice that they had taken him for dead long before he stopped breathing. At Retriever central your own funeral was an unfortunate phrase said thrice while meaning it, a budding sense of justice, or chocking on a donut. The only justice in the building were the pops that were sold at the bar of the first floor. Water is often defined as a colorless, flavorless, odorless liquid. Ice as water’s solid state. Those ice pops failed at the colorless part but made up for it by being the most insipid creation of man.

  Sat my ass upon the leather, and the leather disliked me as much as I disliked it. There were no forms to sieve through today, so I turned on my spinning chair, making the old metal protest, and decided it would grant me a few brownie points to try to behave like a comprehensive human being. “You two miss your pets, right? How is it? I know the feeling is negative but I cannot feel it, so, talk about it if it makes you feel better. I may find it informative.”

  Keyword: try.

  “it’s a void down here.” Valenan’s hand hovered over his chest, describing slow circles. “it’s… how to explain it to you if you never felt it?” Valenan sighed. I could see the man was trying, like, genuinely trying to explain it to me in a way that wasn’t all wishy-washy and subjective. “What’s the worst moment you have lived through?”

  “Possibly the seizures I suffered as a wee lad.” I answered in all earnest. “But I am good at reading people and I can notice you are not in the mood for this. So, for the sake of civility within our team, I apologize for bringing it up.” I went back to shuffling through paperwork and office supplies, but shortly after Revekka spoke.

  “We graduated. We are wizards now. And we have no idea what each other’s sacromotors do!” She exploded, clearly trying to evade the matter of grief. “I went with a body enhancing build. I will be a frontline asset in the field. I can run, I can jump, I can punch and heave. I’ll be a human cannonball. Now is your turn.”

  “You weight fifty-four kilograms, pigtails included,” I observed. “I am all things back: backline, backup, backhand, backstab, back in action in a blink. Amaldia called it a Desertor’s build: three illusion, two enhancement, one healing, one enchantment, and a manifestation module, all minor. Nothing particularly powerful, but an assorted toolbox that serves me above all, and you just below me. I could even heal your small wounds if I learn to use it correctly.” I tilted my head towards the third member of our team, the benosed menace, the collie lover, the one, the only (one with such a terrible name): Valenan. “What about you, Minus-vali?”

  Valenan crossed the fingers of both his hands, closed his eyes, and, I think, said a prayer. “Please, never call me that ever again. If only out of respect for disabled people.” He groomed his thin hair a bit with his bony fingers, and then continued. “I went for a single major summoning mod. Not very flexible at first, but I Imagined we would have you for the clowning and improvisation, friend.”

  “Please, never call me that ever again. If only out of respect for befriended people.” I echoed his words, dripping with cold irony. “Summoning fits you, Valenan. Having someone or something else beat those poor disabled protestors without dirtying your hands. I’ll make them beat each other, that’s why I got illusion modules. Sow some unrest among the masses when ordered to repress them, and let the rabble handle each other. Lovely mental image.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I’d be thankful if you avoided bringing that up. We may be the Governor’s watchdogs, but we also help people whenever we can. We are force of order, guardians of the status quo, for better and for worse. Every horrible act we may commit gets balanced by every time we put our lives on the line to save someone’s soul from eternal torture,” Valenan discoursed, feigning to focus on the paperwork in front of him, signing some forms absent-mindedly.

  “Beating up pensioners and concerned mothers for a living may be a bit too traumatizing for you, Val. And for me: it sounds mind-numbingly boring. I’ll need injections of liquid dopamine to function after a week of it. I’ll be raiding pharmacies for some levodopa as the abject dullness turns me into a Parkinson’s patient.” I could feel it in the air. Revvie was about to reprimand me or let out several expletives in a row. “But, then again, maybe the slain pensioners will drop their drugs like mobs in a game. I’ll roll greed for the rheumatoid arthritis and oncologic ones: those are worth a pretty penny.”

  Revvie leaned forward and beckoned me with the finger. I remained in place. Pulled my hand mirror out my pocket and replaced her face with mine in my line of vision. There, much better. “Dude, be honest with me: do you read about chronic illnesses in your free time? Are you a hypochondriac in addition to a fucking psycho?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am not, but I do. Just because I began my healing journey with a minor module doesn’t mean I wish to remain ignorant about common ailments. If they ever affect me due to old age, they better catch me prepared. If they affect my enemies, I better know how to leverage them. If they affect my allies…” I let the implication hang off in the air, to see if they knew me enough.

  “You need to find new allies?” Suggested Valenan.

  I snapped my fingers in his direction. “Bingo! Jackpot! Poker! Surviving your date with the daughter of a Mafioso, even!” I pulled out my smartphone and checked the hour on it. I tapped the screen aimlessly until I found the goddamn alarm icon, a blue thing that liked to hide among the other countless, useless blue apps I couldn’t be bothered to uninstall. Curse you, convenience. I set one for five minutes before my first playdate with one of my teachers —the fatass— who would teach me how to lie. To reality. By creating illusions without turning my brain into mush in the process. Hopefully. For as an honorable man I have always been married to truth, but I cheat on her with the secretaries. And the babysitter. And the neighbor’s wife. And a tree with a couple tumors that remind me of a caboose. Most faithful man under the dome, truly. “I have a bit of time until I get spirited away by Aconessi’s bebuttered hands, so… how’s your schedule looking for today?”

  “I have classes at two-thirty in the gymnasium.”

  “Nothing until next week. Summoners are few and far between, and the ones we have are on campaigns,” Valenan’s slanted mouth said all I needed to know about his opinion on the subject of having a fucking week of what basically amounted to vacations. The gall. The bladder, even.

  “Few, far between, far away, over the hills.” I wistfully stared into the wall. “That stain is new.” I informed, out of an unquenchable sense of duty. “Back to it: who’s your instructor, Rev?”

  “Adrahiela, the Rank D enhancer,” she admitted flatly. It seemed clear to me that she was trying to hide disdain or fear of her soon-to-be mentor. Hey, a pathological lack of empathy doesn’t mean I cannot read people: in fact, it means I spent an inordinate deal of effort and time learning how to do so. I know why it hurts, I know how you despise the feeling because I despise it too when it happens to me. And if it never happens to me, I can sort of emulate it in my reasonably functional human brain. Sometimes I have to remind people I am not a shadow-daddy-themed romantic chatbot that decomposes words into tokens to vomit some semi-sensical output and whatnot. It’s fun, I have to admit. Intricate tapestry of (Random bullshit one) and (Abstract crap two).

  “The lesbo-haired one?” I asked, tactfully.

  “I’ll ignore the adjective, but yes, you are thinking about the right person.”

  I reclined on my chair and grinned. The intrusive thoughts were having a victory feast. I knew I shouldn’t mock her ferret-loving ass. I knew. But, at worst, she would hit me slightly harder than usual.

  “Well, you’ll have an easier time with all of this, being a hetero woman and all…” I let it hang, gestured slowly. l wiggled my eyebrows.

  “What are you insinuating? I am going to make you spit your balls out if it is what I think it is.” She cracked her knuckles.

  “Oh, nothing. You know, your sacromotor is very particular. Full of ferrets and all, you will have an easy time learning to use it.”

  She relaxed her shoulders a bit, visibly puzzled. “I don’t think I follow your train of thought, Saon.”

  “Just, you know: you must be used to having long, hairy things pulsing inside you.”

  Time seemed to go still. Revekka’s expression transitioned from slight, confused smile to a grimace, and then a frown. Valenan’s eyes slowly went wider, and like lightning he started off his chair. “Revvie, no. He’s ill. He’s an ass, but he cannot help it. Calm down.”

  Revvie’s body started shinning softly and, I’d swear, to give off a slight ferrety aroma. Which was probably just her ferret-hair-infused clothes. Fucking ferrets. They even dare being alliterative when you insult them.

  But I digress.

  Revvie’s delicate and womanly hand grabbed my manly trachea and lifted me up in the air. I wasn’t a fan of seeing the floor and my chair fall, so to speak, away. I missed them dearly.

  “Revvie, put him down. I’ll buy you a nice dinner if you want, out of my pocket, really. Control yourself, I know it’s hard. But we can. We are not Saon. He’s wrong in the head and diagnosed as such, for fuck’s sake. Put him down.”

  Oh, how beautifully Rev’s nostrils flared as she applied not enough pressure to choke me, but just enough to make it uncomfortable to breathe. I whistled and wheezed beautifully, a train in full mating season.

  “Rev, if you hurt him badly we will be reprimanded by the higher ups. Even if you want to pummel Saon to the ground.”

  “Dude, you suck at this.” I rasped out between gasps for precious, albeit worthless in a monetary sense, air. “Harder mommy.”

  Her warm hand felt like an automatic massager over my neck as her body shuddered with rage. “Apologize. Now.” She demanded. Like asking a mole rat to enumerate colors, really.

  “He cannot apologize and mean it, Rev. He is incapable from a medical standpoint! You are asking a cripple on a wheelchair to run a marathon.” Valenan kept lawyering on my behalf. Unfortunately for him, everything I said could and would be used against me outside of court. And possibly inside, too.

  “I am sorry, ferretfucker,” I coughed up, and suddenly, the pressure on my trachea went away as the room escaped from me in a way that felt pretty bigoted, especially as I flew out the office door. Luckily, she, in all her pristine and utterly white glory, was there to catch me before I hit the brick wall. My skull spearheaded the expedition through her plastic embrace, shattering and bending her most intimate parts. Suffice to say that you will be remembered for your sacrifice, Seisua brand water dispenser.

  The cold fluids of my savior, mineralized as they were, dripped on the crack of my butt while I laid there, pained, bruised, but alive and I suppose kicking. In the background, beyond the graveyard of plastic over my eyes, I could hear Valenan and rushing to my aid.

  “Hey, buddy, are you conscious?” he asked, quickly removing the pieces of the broken appliance that had collapsed over me. A little warmth trickled down the back of my neck. Plastic bits, shattered? Sharp things, people. The impact had gifted me with several small cuts.

  As I recovered from my travel via broad airlines, you know, while one tried to make the objects around stop spinning and takes stock of newfound areas of dull pain, the man like a beast ambled in. The main reason why my instructor was widely recognized as a top tier illusionist is that nobody would thinly recognize him, ever. Legend told that whenever Aconessi may roam, all things greasy would cry in abject fear, dreading their reaper. His blue eyes constantly focused on the floor, his hands rubbed each other in constant loops. In my humble opinion he looked like a giant, halfass shaved upright rat that had raided several cheese stores in the last fortnight and wasn’t satisfied yet.

  His calm stare stopped upon me. Seeing me on the floor, struggling to sit upright despite my aching back, and rubbing my upper left arm wasn’t the most proper of first impressions.

  “Are you Saon Ladius? You look the part.” He turned to ask Valenan, and I felt a dagger to the heart. There was no bigger offense.

  “No, he is, sir… Aconessi, right?”

  “The very same.” He said in a flat tone that betrayed none of his intentions, but emulated the calm that preceded the storm. “Saon, boy, do you need help getting up? Or ironing your uniform? It is wrinkled.”

  “I just got beaten up for being an ass to my fellow Retriever.” I pointed at a Revekka whose deep, purposeful breaths still indicated she was ready to pummel me into the shape of a brick and practice some masonry. “That may have conspired against proper attire preservation etiquette.”

  Dusting off my uniform, I raised from the shattered cadaver of the water dispenser, and gave it a quick glance before closing my eyes. “My sweet refreshing princess.” I kneeled in front of the fallen, half empty water bottle, and looked for the labels. I held it in my arms as I pretended to close its eyes. “Shhh, there’s no more pain for you now. You will reach a better place. Better than my kidneys, even. A place fuller of microplastics than you could ever imagine.”

  “Saon, you are making a scene,” Valenan muttered between his teeth.

  “Bitch, respect the grief of others!” I kept caressing the torn cadaver of the dispenser. “She was so young. So… hydrating. She had a family of disposable cups…”

  “Is he always like this?” Aconessi prompted Valenan.

  “No, only ninety-percent of the time.”

  The boulder of a man hummed, analyzing me with his little soft eyes. “I have taken the freedom to read your archive, Saon. You are quite the interesting individual. My office is the twenty-seventh of the first floor. Mind to follow me there right now?”

  “Yes, I do mind. Awfully.”

  “Your record states you are a contrarian and a half.” He wagged his fat sausage of an index finger in front of my nose. “Which means training you will be my pleasure.”