Checking my internal compass, I trotted toward the mysterious café. I located the girls at once: you had to be blind not to notice the massive Troll hugging a bowlful of colored ice-cream scoops the size of a washtub.

"Hello, ladies!"

Zena's purple tongue demonstratively licked her spoon. She gave me a wink. "Hello you too, castle conqueror and dead dragon slayer! What brings you here? What on earth would make you remember our green-faced bunch?"

The Troll gave their leader an offended look. "Gray-faced, too!" she boomed grudgingly.

I waved my hands at them trying to extinguish the first spark of the conflict. "Don't listen to them, baby! They're just jealous. I thought more of you than I did of them put together."

"Did you really?" Bomba the Troll stared at me with suspicion.

Not wishing to aggravate my karma with petty lies, I gave her a reconciling smile. "I've got a really nice troll living in my castle, you know. He's strong and agile as a cat, and—he's quite an intellectual. True, he's an NPC but does it really matter? Fancy meeting him?"

Bomba peered into my eyes trying to work out whether I was poking fun at her. Her face blackened. She lowered her eyes. "Mind if I do? There aren't many of our kind around, actually, and those that are..." her voice trailed away. She made a helpless gesture.

Actually, I hadn't exactly meant it. I had been poking fun, to a degree. But nothing prevented me from introducing Snowie to her. Wasn't I myself drooling over Ruata the Drow Princess? If so, why couldn't Bomba meet a single responsible Troll seeking same? You never know how the years spent in the skin of a different race could affect your mentality. I could clearly see these girls had been here for quite a while. I'd have loved to hear their story one day. Their strange racial choice for perma mode made me prickle with curiosity.

An approaching waiter disrupted my musings. To his "What are you having?" Zena turned to me.

"What you mean to discuss, is it serious?"

"A contract," I nodded.

She cringed, her face resembling a pickled lemon, then instructed the waiter, "Two Isabellas for me and a bubbly."

"Eight brandies," Bomba mumbled, looking upset. "Make sure they're all different!"

The waiter marked down three more orders in the same vein, then stared at me, expectant. What kind of ice-cream parlor was that? I ventured a guess,

"A few beers, please. One light, one dark and one Elven."

Nonplussed, the waiter jotted it down and left.

Sensing the quizzical silence, I leaned forward and lowered my voice. "Now, girls. I need a group of Dark mercs for a five-minute gig at the main square. Today. In two hours."

They exchanged glances. "How many are there?"

I gave it some thought. "At least three hundred. They are going to have a big event there today. At least three thousand attendees are expected. Plus staff, guards and some rapid-response people. We need to distract all that menagerie to allow me about three minutes of absolute immunity so that no arrow or stray bolt of lightning disrupts my concentration. Which means that I will need a group or two to cast a Minor Power Dome. The rest will have to create a security ring to keep all the potential assailants at bay," I stopped as Zena shook her head. "What?"

Her tiny reassuring hand lay over mine. "Max. What you're offering is not some boss raid or a clan scuffle. We here call it 'interference in the sphere of interests of a large faction'. Your contract would bring our Guild into conflict with the City of Light and the King's administration, the Light priests and God knows who else: the guards, the King's officers, and other clans who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

"Doesn't the merc contract say it doesn't affect your relationship with factions?" I said.

She nodded. "Not officially, no. But in reality, there will be some bad blood left. With time, it might backfire really badly. Imagine if it was your raid we slaughtered while you were busy dishing out the loot? Nothing personal, just business as usual. Imagine for a second that they also know the name of their employer—let's call him Clan X. Imagine that? So you think you wouldn't change your opinion of those mercs? Cross your heart? Ah, you see. So what we need is the Guild Coordinator to sanction it. I can pull a few strings to make sure he sees you as soon as possible. Would you like that?"

Why was life so complicated? I had no choice, though. I nodded.

She seemed to have expected it. Her eyes glazed over, her fingers trembling as she hit the virtual keyboard wording the message to the mysterious Guild Coordinator.

The waiter arrived and began filling the table in front of each of us with a plethora of bowls containing colored scoops of ice-cream. We sat surrounded by whiffs of the aroma best described as an alcohol-delivery truck accident. Finally, he reached me. Placing a crystal thin-stalked bowl onto a lacy napkin, he commented,

"Your order: a scoop of light, another of dark and," he swallowed enviously, "a scoop of Elven ale, 5142 brew. Enjoy your food."

"Cheers," Zena raised a spoonful of burgundy Isabella.

Chapter Twenty

M oscow. Max's apartment. Current time.

Max's mom Anastasia Pavlovna was finishing her daily manipulations over her son's body. She'd already changed the almost-dry diaper, wiped his skin with a damp sponge, massaged his main muscle groups and replaced the saline bags on the automatic IV drip.

She swept away an unwanted tear and stroked her boy's cheek, dry and scratchy like parchment. He was so gaunt. Not everyone would have recognized him as the once-cheerful young man who could have lost a few pounds. Between his deadly disease and the extended coma, they had eaten his body on the inside and transformed it on the outside.

Anastasia Pavlovna glanced at the dozens of sensors that covered her son's body stretching their bundled cables to a massive console brought into her apartment by the Chronos workers.

It had all changed so quickly. After Max contacted her, she had barely made an appointment when a couple of young and aggressive sales managers stormed into her apartment, pitching to her in the best traditions of neuro linguistic programming. Good job they were followed by a very nice girl called Olga, apparently a friend of Max', who came running after them—very sweet, intelligent and strangely sad. They would have made such a nice couple. Anastasia Pavlovna would have loved to sit with some grandchildren while she still had time.

The girl had easily overrun the two. Under their pained stares, she had crossed out half of the contract's clauses fighting for the best offer plus some extras on top from their VIP reserve. Anastasia Pavlovna had herself heard one of the managers whisper in Olga's ear, "You stupid idiot, what do you think you're doing?" She had very nearly asked the bully to leave her house at once and only the sight of her son's pale face had stopped her from doing it there and then.

She hadn't waited for the money transfer from her boy. She signed the contract on the spot and paid the deposit out of her own savings including her 'funeral money'. That didn't matter so much, really. As long as her boy was all right, money would take care of itself. Besides, hadn't Max told her he was earning a good wage in that AlterWorld of his? He definitely made enough to rent that lovely cottage for her. He also had some very no-nonsense friends: one of them, Vladimir, was even now sitting by the kitchen window monitoring (as he called it) the front door. She'd told him so many times it wasn't worth the trouble, told him she was too old to be bodyguarded like that. But he wouldn't listen, would he? He was always one step behind her, turning his head this way and that, checking the surroundings. A fine young man, even though he'd never offered to help her with her shopping bag. 'I'm awful sorry, ma'am,' he'd say, 'but my hands must be free at all times.'