The Offer

Lien was approaching his house. He was pulling his bicycle behind him. Lien was just attaching the bicycle to a pole when he saw a car that had stopped nearby. Kelis got out of the car.

The street was not the most suitable place for a conversation, so Lien invited Kelis to his house.

Lien politely made Kelis tea and sat down at the table to talk.

- “It’s so unusual that he’s not around…” - Kelis said sadly.

- “The older I got, the more he spent time at home with me… There were moments when I got so used to his absence that it seemed as if I wouldn’t feel anything if I found out that he would never come back…”

Lien looked sadly at the photo of Rennie standing on the table nearby.

- "But now, when he really never came back, I understand how wrong I was. Feelings of loss overwhelm me," - added Lien sadly.

Kelis looked at Lien and the moments of his last fight with Rennie flashed before him again.

- "You don't have to come here. You were Rennie's friend, not mine," - Lien said calmly.

Kelis took a piece of paper from his jacket and placed it on the table.

- “I’m here for a reason. I need your help.”

Kelis slid the piece of paper to Lien. Lien took the piece of paper and looked at it. He glanced at the piece of paper. There were several sentences written there in a foreign language.

Lien put the piece of paper aside.

- “I can’t help you with anything because I don’t understand what’s written there,” - Lien said calmly.

- “Can’t a student of the Department of Ancient Languages ​​and Literatures really help me with a few sentences?”

- “You know better than I do that this is the Xarak language. It is the language that describes the TDCs found. Because of this, access to materials for studying the language has been strictly limited, and only a few people in the world have access. And I’m not one of them.”

- “That’s interesting… for someone who doesn’t understand what’s written there, your gaze has been wandering around the text for too long. Most of the time, if a person doesn't understand the language, or is trying to figure out what language it's written in, they don't go through it from beginning to end like you did. I think Rennie, as one of those who knew the language, was secretly teaching you it."

Kelis thought for a moment and continued. - “I'm curious, did you want to learn this language yourself? Or was it Rennie who suggested it?”.

- "Why are you here?" - asked Lien, as the conversation began to take a completely different direction.

Kelis thought for a moment and began to answer Lien. – “I know that Rennie was guided by his principles when he did what he did. I have always respected him for the views that he defended to the end. But, I am sure that if he heard what is happening to this world now, he would not support it… This is not the future he was looking for.”

- “What are you talking about?” - Lien clarified.

- “In the hands of our country is a TDC that is capable of saving the entire Earth, and not just the chosen ones, as the Ark project proposes!” - Kelis confidently declared.

- "Are you planning to launch our TDC on your own?" - Lien asked thoughtfully and in surprise.

- “Exactly! But for this I need a person who knows the Xarak language…”

Lien thought.

- “How can you trust the grandson of the person who betrayed you?”

Kelis looked at Lien in surprise. His words brought back memories of thirty years ago. It was a time when Kelis and Rennie were young and worked side by side on science projects.

The two of them stood in an office filled with blueprints for a new science project.

- “Rennie! What we are creating in this room will change the whole world!” - Kelis said enthusiastically.

Rennie adjusted his glasses and looked carefully at the blueprints of the project.

- “Let's get this all working first…” - answered Rennie.

- “Rennie!” - Kelis said in a serious voice.

Rennie looked at Kelis in surprise.

- “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here at all. If I ever fail you… don’t hesitate and follow the path that you yourself consider right!” - Kelis declared.

The memories passed and Kelis returned to her conversation with Lien.

- "It seems that of the two of us, I was the traitor," - Kelis declared.

Kelis stood up from his chair and pulled out a pass for the highest level of access from his jacket pocket.

- "You have the right to give the time you have left for yourself... To spend it enjoying life... Or, you can forget about yourself and give these months to the whole world."

Kelis did not say goodbye and silently left Lien's house.

Lien began to look at the pass. At that moment, memories from the time when he was 15 years old flooded him. On the table in front of him, exactly the same as Renée's pass card, cut in two.

Rennie silently looked at his pass.

- “Why did you do this?” - asked Rennie.

- “The older I get, the less time you spend at home…” - said Lien sadly.

- "I lien..." - Rennie tried to justify himself.

- “You are the only one I have! The only one! But work is more important to you than me… It seems that work is the only thing you have…”

- “It’s not that, Lien… I just… as if I am a prisoner of fate, which pushes me to give myself to something else. As if I should devote time, the most precious thing I have, to science… discoveries, and everything that can be valuable to this world, and not just to me…”

Lien’s memories of Rennie ended and he looked at the pass he had been given. Lien looked at the photo of Rennie that was standing on the table nearby.

- "Looks like it's my turn to give all of myself".