Execution

It was the worst-furnished apartment I'd ever seen. Full of excessive, unnecessary opulence, cluttered with kitschy sculptures and paintings. Theatrical costumes and scripts were strewn everywhere, and a disgusting, reddish carpet covered the floor.

I stood there, a mocking smile on my face, a gun in my hand, a cigarette in my mouth. And she knelt, staring into the black void of the barrel, begging for mercy, for her life. But she was still playing. It was noticeable. A real Dark One, created by a master of the game, would be trembling at this moment, his eyes wandering around the room, searching for some kind of escape, his voice trembling, and a yellowish, murky trickle would be running across the floor.

Such was life. But she was merely playing. She knelt, begging, but... There was no such terror in her voice, nothing changed in her eyes. Besides—what was supposed to change? To the light, she was just a piece of paper filled with data and fictitious personal information. At worst, she'd throw it in the trash. She'd make a new one, but...

She'd leave.

"I beg you," she stammered, but it was so artificial I wanted to laugh. "Please, spare..."

I pulled the trigger.

And then, as if nothing had happened, I left that hideous apartment, went down the stairs, left the building. I got into a taxi, drove away. The first figure of the light was dead.

Time to catch the next.

* * *

A room. Outside, darkness, evening, the approaching night. Inside, a candle, set in an elaborate, tulip-shaped candlestick, illuminates the darkness. It's raining. Drops mark the windows, merging to create fantastic patterns.

He stands by the window and I stare at the darkness looming beyond. He's lost his calling, his passion. He felt it wouldn't work, that it wasn't worth the effort, that it wasn't his forte.

He started killing. And worse still, he noticed he enjoyed it. The actress was the first to go under the fire. A bullet to the head, and that was it. The card burned, the ash disappearing into the depths of the wastebasket.

He smiled, mockingly. It was time for the spy, the newcomer to the team, then the antiquarian. The farmer, already frayed, is in a psychiatric ward. He's accompanied by a lovely former psychologist, whose last adventure transformed her from doctor to patient.

The light one sits dejectedly on the green couch, her legs drawn up beneath her. She thinks, regrets. One of the light ones spares her sarcastic remarks, the other, the spy one, makes a fool of himself.

The master remains silent. He devises a strategy, a plot, mentally sketches the crime scene, the victim's appearance. He may not be a perfect narrator, but he would make a great killer. The killer artist.

The light flickers and ripples. The candle burns.

The Master resumes his story.

* * *

The City has probably never seen weather like this before. A beautiful, cloudless sky, not too warm, but not too cold either, a pleasant, warm breeze.

The dilapidated ruins have been transformed into restored, freshly painted tenement houses, adding a touch of flavor to the Glass City; the broken windows have been miraculously replaced, all at once.

The Light Ones are now wondering why the actress is silent. They're calling, knocking on doors, asking neighbors. The Master locked the door behind me. He removed the traces. He's a professional. Just like me.

Working in the Office for the Elimination of the Dark Ones, as I call it, brings nothing but profits. Above all, I don't have to fear a change in my life in a split second; I don't have to memorize hundreds of names they'll call me; I don't have to tell the Light Ones nonsense that's of no use to them anyway. Finally, the joy, the ecstasy that the sight of a creature waiting to die brings me.

So far, only the Dark Ones. So far.

And now, when the Master has finally started killing the Light Ones... It was worth it. Sacrificing the lead role, his job as a cleaner, perhaps the prospect of becoming both a rich man and the main character in another adventure. It was worth it. Truly.

I stroll slowly through the crowded city streets, in a black suit, sunglasses, hand in pocket. I have a few moments to spare. The Master will finally send the police there, break down the door, lead them onto a false trail. Jasna remains silent; she's been given an order. Then he'll separate them. And I'll step in.

I am Smith. And I am the will of the Game Master himself.

* * *

I caught the spy that same evening.

He parted ways with the archaeologist towards evening, tired and a bit depressed by the day's events – and it had begun innocently enough. With a silly party in honor of the owner of the theater where the actress was performing. And then it began.

The investigation, fears, suspicions... But they couldn't run around the City forever. All they had to do was wait. It was worth it.

When he turned the key in the lock, I was already inside (oh, how I love Passages...), waiting for him. I attached the silencer to the pistol. Quietly and quickly. Professionally.

He lived in a high-rise building, on the top, tenth floor. In apartment number 303. A spacious apartment. It also had a fairly large tiled bathroom, a kitchen-dining room larger than my entire small apartment.

The living room was French-style – cream walls, a wooden floor, a fancy lamp, a fake fireplace with gold, never-used candlesticks. A glass table, a huge Philips television mounted directly to the wall, a mini-stereo system from Aiwa perched somewhere on a high shelf, surrounded by French books. The French government must have paid him handsomely to sell classified information.

The bedroom had a large double bed, even though he lived alone. The walls were salmon-colored, with a colorful carpet on the floor. A small room served as a dressing room.

That's where I hid.

Unaware of anything, having used the restroom earlier, exhausted, he threw himself onto the couch, with the blissful sigh of a man after a hard day at work.

I opened the dressing room door.

* * *

The Master explains, talking a lot and quickly, but he understands little. He sits on a strange, metal chair in the Master's kitchen, at a brown table/counter. He listens with a stony expression. Even though he knows full well what's coming. He knows why the Master has asked him to leave the room for a moment, and their conversation has shifted here.

"Listening," the Game Master blurts out, and he, discouraged, looks at the card.

"Sixty-five," he replies. Not much, for a spy. The Master contorts his face in a disgusting grimace, as if he already knows the outcome. He hands him two transparent, ten-sided dice.

He rolls. And then he stands up, resigned, certain of what will happen next. Realizing how close, and how far, he was from success. He could have heard him, could have tried to defend himself. He takes a glass from the cupboard, goes to the refrigerator, and sips cold orange juice. The Master has allowed them, has made everything in his house available to them for the duration of their adventure. So he takes advantage of it. Besides, he needs to decompress.

There's no point in trying to avoid it, no point in trying to reach the weapon he's abandoned somewhere in the living room, in his jacket pocket.

He's lost a spy.

The Master recounts everything in detail; the death scene seems incredibly precise, thoughtful. He places all the blame on the foreign intelligence that identified him, found him, and eliminated him. None of his descriptions have been as precise as this one. A description of tragedy. The death of his best friend. Pieces of himself.

He finishes his juice and hands the Game Master the card.

They return to the dark room, lit only by a small, white candle. They return to a world of fantasy, a world created by a madman, eager for their own death, only in a different form.

In the kitchen, lit by the glow of a lightbulb, already seeming to be part of another reality, two transparent dice lie on a brown table. Prepared especially for such an occasion. They indicate the number rolled by the last of the light ones.

Sixty-seven...

* * *

It was raining. But it was a warm, spring rain, a drizzle. Lights glowed in the windows of the glass buildings, creating a truly beautiful effect on the wet surface of the asphalt road.

The antiquarian remained. But I still had a moment to reminisce, to think, perhaps even to pray? I don't know any Gods. But so what?

Let the Master confuse the plot a bit, let him take some more solace in his character's life, a nearly solved mystery, a finished adventure.

He won't make it. The Game Master would be the perfect assassin.

* * *

A cemetery. Perhaps the only place in the city that doesn't ooze modernity. Old stone tombstones, faded inscriptions, damaged plaques. And a single crypt, looming somewhere at the very edge of the cemetery. Next to it, a plaque. New, fresh, intact. Three names are carved on it: Williams, Baker, Jones.

A gentleman dressed in a black suit approaches, places a red rose on the ground, pauses for a moment, apparently praying. Then he walks away, lost in thought, his gaze fixed on the ground.

It's raining. But it's a warm, spring rain. A drizzle, you might say.

"Thank you for recruiting me," he whispers as he passes through the rusty cemetery gate, turning toward the buildings. "You don't know how much you gave me.

" * * *

"Forty-five," the Game Master says in disbelief, examining the transparent dice. "You passed."

A nasty smile spreads across Jasny's face.

"I passed," he announces again. "I saw it, I heard it."

* * *

A small, dark room, full of antiques, one wall entirely devoted to a bookcase. Most of the furniture is covered with a white cloth. I almost started to be afraid. Almost.

A wooden table, I think it was from the 16th or 18th century. Behind it was me, pistol in hand. Opposite me, awkwardly holding a small pistol, an antiquarian. I didn't expect him to be so young. I'd imagined a balding old man with glasses as thick as bottle bottoms on his nose, slightly stooped, leaning on a cane. And here stood a quite young man, maybe thirty, with a short haircut, wearing glasses, true, but completely ordinary ones. Unshaven, with a goatee.

"What do you want?" he blurted out. He wasn't afraid. He even smiled. I liked him immediately. He would be an interesting asset for BLC. Too bad he's light-skinned. You can't hire people like that.

"Well, after what happened to your friends, you should know," I smiled back. I moved two steps to the side, under the chair, never taking my eyes off him.

"Who are you working for?

" "Is this an interrogation, my friend?

" "I think it's an execution, brother?" he strained for sarcasm. A fine fellow, nothing short of… "Who are you working for?" "

For an influential man—I was telling the truth to some extent, but he still wouldn't believe it, that's for sure.

" "You're lying. All assassins lie.

I've only just sat down. He wanted to talk, not shoot. Let him be. Let's talk."

* * *

The candle goes out. Two Light Ones, deprived of their forms, sit on the green cornea. They think. They wait. The Master, like the last "surviving" Light One, is gone.

They wait.

Behind the wall, in the kitchen, at the brown counter, a chat is going on. Friendly, warm. However, this is not the conversation between the Light One and the Master.

This is a conversation between an antiquarian and a murderer.

* * *

I left this house with an antique candlestick in my hand, satisfied with how things turned out.

In this game, there are no winners or losers. There are only the living or the dead. The antiquarian survived because he was worth living. He passed the test.

I leave his house with a smile on my face, though I regret one thing: he is a bright one. And I would be a great asset to BLC.