Huyger's desperate face flashed before Meyer's eyes.
Only the buzzing of flies remained in his ears.
His eyes were fixed on the corpse of the woman lying on the ground. On this face, there was only a crushed head painted with blood and a half-eaten countenance. The eyes of a young girl, clinging to a final hope of life.
The Vectors were bouncing on the head where those eyes belonged, as if it were a trash can. As they moved from place to place, they became carriers of a goddamn stench.
The Devil Chip roared to life. For the first time, he felt as if he could hear the purr of this device on the back of his neck. "Aren't you going into the tower? Code 43 must be waiting for you."
"I have my doubts. Is the person looking for me really Code 43?"
"You have doubts about this?" the Devil Chip asked, as if having doubts was both inevitable and fatal.
Meyer knew he couldn't pull his thoughts through the filter of this piece of machinery.
As soon as they fell into his brain as a signal, the device sucked them up like dust pushed through a vacuum cleaner hose.
Meyer asked, "Whose body is this?"
"The death of this girl seems to have devastated you," said the Devil Chip. Meyer perceived a slightly mocking tone in the signal and hated it.
"A dead human being is lying in front of me," he said, forgetting everyone he had beaten in the back arena.
The spiders that riddled the Cutter with holes, then how Magnus broke his nose and all that. These scenes had unforgettable details.
He slowly advanced toward the corpse and threw his hand into the air, catching one of the mosquitoes. This small, sticky thing began to sizzle in his hand. Meyer threw it from his hand to the ground, a thousand things spinning in his head.
The slogan "2047, The Death of the Chief Executive of the Union of Precious Gems spread terror everywhere!" passed through his mind and faded. But what connection did this have to the corpse lying on the ground?
"The year is 10,290; who is in the homicide squad now?" he asked.
The Devil Chip replied, "Code 43."
Meyer's stomach turned, and he vomited once more.
"Why are you surprised, my friend?" said the Devil Chip.
"Why? Puah! Could it be because I learned that special units don't exist? Did you switch to a monarchy or something? Man, wasn't that gone years and years ago?"
"Let's not call it a monarchy, let's call it a free dictatorship."
"Dictatorship?" Meyer said. "What did you say?"
"Dictatorship," the Devil Chip repeated.
"Dictatorship," Meyer muttered under his breath. What was it that reminded him of that 2047 news?
"Go online and search," Meyer said as he moved away from the corpse and sat on a stone step. These flying creatures didn't even care; he released the mosquito that was buzzing in his hand. He didn't want the vector to wake the freedom shield any further.
"Year 2047. The death of the Chief Executive of the Department of Precious Gems."
"That's a very old date; unfortunately, the data from that time must have been lost."
"And they used to call technology 'advanced' back then. Don't make me laugh!" Meyer shouted in anger. He took his head between his hands and began to think. First, he had to go home.
As soon as the Devil Chip sensed this idea, it asked, "Are you going to keep Code 43 waiting? He invited you to his tower," it said in a cold voice.
At least, that's what Meyer perceived in his synapses.
"The one speaking wasn't Code 43, that's all I know," he said, straightening up on his knees. "I'm 64 years old now anyway," he said, smiling with the despair of a prisoner of fate.
"Where did you get that from?" asked the Devil Chip.
Meyer stood up and set out toward his home from years ago. He lived behind the earthquake debris areas, across from a small park with swings. From there, he would watch the sunrise and sunset, and the little child swinging late at night because he had been kicked out of the house. It seemed to him that some families were luckier, and some were unluckier.
When he was kicked out of the house in his youth, he identified more with that little child. Pancakes struggling in ovens where the dough boiled with heat coming from deep underground were waving. The honey was too liquid, and since bees had now evolved, the honeycombs were more misshapen. Meyer didn't know what state they were in now.
Speaking of honey-colored, he remembered that his house was also light yellow. The nerve vibrations in his head had diminished. The house was still standing in its place.
His father had said, "This house will never be demolished," and had sworn oaths upon it.
Meyer had said this couldn't be true, that the house would be demolished in two years at most, but more than forty years had passed. The structure's feet were firmly on the ground.
He thought about how he had seen a corpse in the tower but had no one to report it to.
The corpse of one of your family members is outside, worth less than trash. He imagined this.
He knocked on the door of the house twice. His heart was fluttering. The excitement circulating in his blood had even taken his intestines captive.
A sound was heard from inside.
"Ha?" It came just as he had lost hope.
Those footsteps... Slow and flickering.
An old woman with a cane in her hand opened the door. This was Meyer's mother.
Meyer almost fainted from shock.
The woman asked, "Yes? Who were you looking for?"
Meyer wanted to open his mouth and say a few words but failed. He was at a loss for words, tongue-tied. Only the word "Mother" escaped his lips.
The woman involuntarily narrowed her eyes. For a moment, her hair stood on end. Her eyes lingered on the small mole on the forehead of Meyer, whose face still retained its youth, only slightly aged. "Steve," she said, covering her mouth with her hand and starting to cry. Meyer knew his first real struggle had begun.
When they went inside, the woman told him everything.
Thinking their son was dead, the family had plastered missing person posters everywhere. But the municipality quickly removed the missing posters of the unemployed who were just wandering around. Meyer's guilt-ridden father had been beaten by a government officer for this very reason. When the lava flow turned everywhere to ash, most people had perished, drowning among the waves in the sea of lava. Meyer's parents' economy had taken a turn for the worse. His father had died two years ago, falling from the seventh floor at a construction site in the tower.
"He died with a thousand regrets in his heart, life is short," the woman said through her sobs.
Meyer could hear her feelings, deep down.
"I know," was all he said.
Upon these words, the woman stood up. In the house full of wooden furniture, she insisted on going to the kitchen to prepare something. Meyer wanted to tell his mother about a few hours ago then. But he didn't remember anything. What had happened to him? Only the carcasses lying on the ground, the spiders, Magnus, and Emma's face were faintly before his eyes.
It was as if he were a different person a few hours ago.
He couldn't resist his mother's persistence and let her leave his side to make chicken soup. The things inside the fireplace were crackling into flames. He missed the days when they warmed themselves with the heat of the ground. Everything had now cooled down like death. His finger felt cold when he touched the concrete counter in front of the wall. A photo frame was looking at him there.
His mother, his father, and Steve Meyer.
Meyer felt a tear flow from his eyes.
He immediately pulled himself together and strained his brain again. "I woke up, I saw Emma, then what happened?" he asked himself. "Why don't I remember?"
His mother returned and served the chicken soup in a beautiful bowl with greens. Meyer drank the soup quickly. It burnt his mouth, but he didn't tell his mother.
The Devil Chip activated.
"Code 43 is waiting for you!"
Meyer felt his mind go blank.
Since his mother had been a history student in the past, he asked:
"Mother, what were we told about the year 2048 in history?"
His mother couldn't understand why he asked this question. She just murmured, "Very old history. Still, old records are records." She paused. "Because artificial intelligence made such a leap for the first time back then, people physically exerted themselves to separate from them. They rowed, they wrestled, and finally, they dealt with gem-mining. Chief Executive Frank Cut was a man with two children living in the town. While rumors circulated in the city that he was cheating on his wife, his wife's brothers were sharing things on social media that damaged the man's reputation. Those tweet records still exist today."
"In such a situation, it was never revealed whether Frank fell victim to a murder or committed suicide out of fear of not receiving support from his audience of one million followers. At that time, the police called the incident a murder. But if there was a killer, he was an incredible ghost and had left no trace."
"Right at that moment, a global economic crisis occurred. Famine crises, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes reached the heavens. People were chasing a full stomach, not murder cases. Before long, this case was forgotten. All that remained was the man's black horse. And it didn't even live five years after him."
"Black horse," Meyer said, and a voice inside told him that going to the tower and speaking with that sole executive was an opportunity. He asked for his mother's phone. He had to go beyond the city to get one for himself.
When the Devil Chip said he had little time left to complete the mosquito-killing mission, he went online and started researching.
"Most effective mosquito killer spray."
Below, advertisements belonging to many brands with various features listed appeared.
When Meyer clicked on one of them, he entered a missing page.
Only an e-mail address was provided.
"V-mail?" he said thoughtfully. He lifted his elbows from the table. "This is an old type of communication method. Why would a modern company want to communicate using old methods?" he muttered. Only old-timers who still valued privacy would do that.
He asked the Devil Chip how much time he had left. The last two hours.
Meyer's insights wanted to reach the product sold on that account.
The mystery piqued his interest and burned him like fire.
He got up from in front of the finished meal plate and went outside. Had his body grown at one point and then returned to normal? He was surprised to notice this for the first time now. When had he grown? When had he become giant-like and risen into the air?
At that moment, he had felt his fingers grow heavy like concrete. As if carrying the whole world on his fingertips.
His brain was a mess. He began to see his surroundings blurrily. The clattering sounds his mother made in the kitchen turned into a roar.
"You are experiencing memory blur as a side effect of the Devil's curse," said the Devil Chip. "You must go to the tower as soon as possible."
"I must go to the tower," Meyer said, pulling the door shut as he left despite his mother's warnings. "I have to do this. No matter what." Just as he stepped outside, something occurred to him. The drawing of a black horse, which must still be hidden in his room's drawer. He had drawn it with his own hands. He remembered. Approaching the drawer, reaching for the handle, and tucking the notebook with his drawing into it. "The bl-ack horse must still be in my drawer!"