28. Almost touch a dream

“Wonderful,” said Kai Asanor. “What a wonderful night, and this centre is all to ourselves tonight.”

I lifted my head, wondering how many floors there were in the mall. The spotlights on the roof loomed in the distance, almost hidden by the cloudy smog. The cool air caressed my skin, and after a warm evening it felt good to be in the invigorating atmosphere of the night capital.

We entered the skyscraper, took the non-functioning escalator up to the endless shop windows full of expensive brands. The guards stood at the beginning and end of the corridor, allowing us to move freely around the sales floor.

My eyes must have shone with a feverish glow as I looked at the mannequins in coats. I've always had a weakness for beautiful outerwear. I ran my palm over the black cashmere, walked around the pedestal, looking for the price tag.

“Don't worry about the price. Buy what you want,” Grant said as he sat down on the sofa.

I looked at the guy in wonder, but it was Asanor who replied, “The prices here are so long that the zeros just don't fit on the price tags, so they don't even hang them up.”

I glanced at the coat I liked and already felt it belonged to me. Still, it was good to be in the president's family; all doors and things were open to Grant. The secretary hadn't been surprised when Circul Junior had asked for a night out at the capital's shopping mall.

I took the cashmere coat from the mannequin and wrapped myself in it, inhaling the scent of my new purchase.

“Not a bad choice,” Kai agreed. “Now you need dresses.”

“Do I have to?”

“Sure,” Asanor smiled and led me to the rack with the latest collection.

We went from boutique to boutique, arguing, and with varying degrees of success, I won the right to choose what I liked. Kai snorted and rolled his eyes, telling me that I had no taste at all and that I had no colour vision either.

We had a great debate about fashion that threatened to become a war of universal proportions. I wasn't impressed by the beautiful but soulless clothes Asanor offered, and he was disgusted by what I chose.

“Well, you're not the one who's supposed to be wearing it,” I retorted.

“I'm supposed to be looking at this nightmare.”

“So don't look. Don't you know how to turn away?” I was trying on a grey blouse with orange question marks.

“ Siri, do you have a conscience at all? You can't let people see you like this. Grant, you should at least tell her…” Kai turned to his cousin.

Grant stared at his phone, oblivious to the world. After Asanor's third call, he deigned to look away; he glanced down at my feet, “No, not that poisonous colour.”

“You told me to choose whatever I wanted,” I said slowly, squinting my eyes.

“Yes, but I don't like the colour. I don't want something walking around with that eye poison. Siri, have you no taste at all? You're a girl, you should have a sense of style under your skin.”

For the second time that night, I'd been humiliated by their remarks. I hung the blouse back on the rack, turned round, and exhaled angrily, “I never thought I'd be told off by a guy with ten identical black T-shirts and six pairs of diarrhoea-coloured trousers in his wardrobe.”

“Those are very expensive mustard coloured trousers, don't demean them with your ignorance,” Circul's gaze darkened.

I grinned and sat up straight on the floor, offended to the core.

“Grant, you're going to buy me these trainers after all,” I said with pressure.

“Or what?” he arched an eyebrow questioningly.

“Or you'll have to carry me in your arms all the time because my feet will bleed if I go barefoot.”

The trainers I had to buy were completely different. I couldn't find the right size in the bright green colour. But something told me that while I was distracted by the shoes, the two conspirators had hidden the trainers in the eye-poison colour I liked so much.

Still, I managed to buy a pair of jeans and two oversized T-shirts. The dresses were lovely, but I hadn't worn them since high school. The only one I picked out was the one I'd wear to kill the president. Dark red, predatory, just screaming that someone was about to get the end of the world.

“Have you finished shopping? Can we put the stuff in the car now?” the head of security came to us.

Kai nodded and pointed to the numerous paper bags that the two sales assistants had placed next to Grant's sofa.

“You can take these and those, but don't take these,” I fingered the packages of dresses. I knew I'd never wear them; Asanor had slipped them to me. Why bring extra rubbish home?

“No, Siri, you're going to take exactly these things,” Kai spoke threateningly above my ear. I could feel his magic urging me to obey his voice.

I turned to meet Kai's bright gaze. His blue eyes were filled with the magic of submission.

That's not fair!

“You'll take it all. And that's not up for debate.”

I nodded, obeying the hypnotic command of the minister's son, even as my insides trembled with contradiction.

“You put the shopping in the car while Siri and I take another walk,” Grant finally turned off his phone and got up from the sofa. “You wanted to go to the bookshop, didn't you, Siri?” and he gave me such a meaningful look.

I looked at Circul in confusion but didn't answer, my intuition telling me that the guy had a reason for saying those words.

The guards carried the bags down to the ground floor, Grant grabbed Asanor by the shoulder and whispered softly, “Kai, security's on you this time.”

Kai lifted the corners of his lips and exhaled. “Good luck,” he said and walked lightly towards the escalator.

“He'll stop them. Let's go,” Grant wrapped the chain around his fist, took my hand just above my wrist and pulled me in a completely different direction from the exit.

“Where are we going?” I managed to ask before I started running, trying to keep up with the guy.

Our destination was definitely not a bookshop, we walked down the stairs to the car park where, to my surprise, Circul Junior opened the back of a lorry and rolled a motorbike out into the light.

“Put it on,” he tossed me the helmet.

It was no use asking, Grant was in a hurry and as soon as I sat comfortably behind him with my arm around his waist, he started to ride. The bike took off, racing across the car park and onto the motorway, merging into traffic in seconds.

Five minutes later, we stopped at an abandoned warehouse, wandered through the ruined halls and got into the lift. Circul pushed the button for the last floor, but we didn't go up. The lift descended with a loud rattle.

“Grant, what is this place?”

“You'll see soon enough. You'll love it here.”

The doors parted and we found ourselves at the entrance to a huge underground hall.

Despite the abundance of chandeliers and sconces, the light in the room was subdued, cheerful conversations and laughter punctuated by background music in a foreign language. Wherever you looked, there were soft sofas with coffee tables, racks of game helmets and cupboards full of other equipment.

We walked almost to the end of the basement. Grant said hello to the barman and ordered a drink, “Two bottles of non-alcoholic tea.”

I tried to hide my surprise and turned away abruptly, pretending to look at the company playing some kind of game. But what was it? Non-alcoholic tea? Is there another kind?

“You've been gone a long time,” said a tall, dark-haired young man with glasses on his head. “I thought you'd forgotten the Hole.”

Circul patted his friend on the shoulder. A friend, that's for sure; I had never seen such a warm smile on the face of the president's son.

“You know, I couldn't just come here at any time,” said Grant.

“And I see you've brought a guest?” his friend asked a little grudgingly.

“This is Siri,” Grant turned me around to face the stranger. “Siri, this is Sai, the local software genius.”

I nodded, and then averted my eyes; for some reason I felt awkward, and I didn't want to look at anyone. I was usually much more relaxed when I met other people.

Glanced suspiciously at Grant, who was laughing; he seemed to want to annoy me with his magic. And I was powerless against these imposed emotions.

“She's very modest,” the barman commented on my embarrassment. “Grant, this is the first time I've seen such a pretty and quiet girl standing next to you.”

The guy didn't say anything, just picked up the tea bottles, handed me one and hurried me off to a quieter place.

“So, what are these halls underground?” I asked again.

“Still don't get it?”

“An underground illegal gaming club?”

Grant laughed as he pulled me close to him and led me deeper into the hall.

“A-a-gra-a! My win!”

I glanced at the man who was overjoyed at his victory. He picked up the girl next to him and twirled her around, mumbling something about orange juice and new bets. And for some reason his voice sounded familiar, but I didn't dwell on that thought; there were a lot of interesting things around. For example, a couple of capsules for full immersion in the virtual world. One of them was worth a dozen military submarines or two and a half spaceships.

Staring at one of mankind's most expensive and ingenious inventions, I didn't want to leave – on the contrary, I wanted to touch it, to stroke it, to feel myself the happiest mortal who had managed to see the miracle of magic and technology.

Grant pointed to a room surrounded by transparent glass walls. Inside were rows of server units.

“We've moved all the data from Ainsoft's servers to these.”

“But how?” I gazed at the little city of electronic information in disbelief.

“When the Parliament started talking about shutting down Virtul, we decided to do it just in case, bought mirror servers, created a cluster.”

“So? You mean..?” I didn't believe it yet. I was afraid to even start.

“Yes,” Circul smiled at my stunned expression. “When the main servers were destroyed, our servers were switched on, we rented satellites from the Samun Empire and the Kingdom of Rith, so yes – the whole time the game was alive.”

“Grant, everything's ready,” Sai, who had been rummaging through the helmets earlier, came over to us.

Circul nodded and turned to me.

“Do you want to play?” he pointed to the virtual reality capsules.