Hero

by Dan Sugralinov

  He paused, pondering over it, then shook his head. “In theory, it should be quite doable. The problem is, to win that sort of money back you need to play big. And I...”

  “And you, my friend, are sick. Let’s imagine — only imagine!” I added, seeing him perk up, “that I gave you the two million. And then what? You think you’re gonna go and pay your debts off? No, you won’t. I know as sure as eggs are eggs that you’ll set a small part of it aside to play with. If you start winning, you will decide you’re on a lucky streak and continue to play until you wind up in the red. Am I right?”

  “Yes, but...”

  “Am I?”

  “I suppose you are.”

  “And if you start losing, you’ll keep on playing to the last, trying to win it all back. You might start playing carefully at first, then you’ll start raising the stakes and lose your head because I know you: you can’t stop until you've pissed everything into the wind. And you know why?”

  “Oh come on, Phil, stop your bullshit...”

  “I’m asking you, do you know why?” I raised my voice, investing everything into my Power of Persuasion skill until my Spirit indicator began to shrink with every word I pumped into his head.

  “Why?” he whispered.

  “Because you’ve been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog, you idiot! Not by anyone in particular but by the game itself! You love to play, you love the risk; you enjoy the surge of adrenaline as you wait for the cards to turn and the dopamine and serotonin kicks that fill you with joy whenever you seem to win. You love the sheer anticipation of winning which is why you even enjoy losing provided you still have enough money to try and win it back because this gives you an even bigger high. You’re a junkie, Gleb. A flippin’ gambling addict. Do you hear me?”

  He turned crimson. “I’m not a junkie! Who gave you the right to preach to me? I can stop any time I want! You know nothing about it! I’m just not lucky! Go and stuff yourself! I don’t need a shrink!”

  He frantically patted his pockets, located the cigarettes and staggered to the door. I followed him. He was already putting his street shoes on.

  “Gleb, listen...”

  “What now?” he snapped, tying his laces.

  “How would you like to pay off all your debts, make it up with your wife, find a good job and take your kids to some exotic seaside resort this Christmas? Somewhere with palm trees and bleached white sand, a gentle warm sea and loads of sun?”

  He looked up at me. His sad brown eyes glinted with hope.

  “Well?” I insisted.

  “What a dumb question. So what if I do? You gotta spare genie in your back pocket?”

  “Who needs a genie when you have me? And I’m telling you now that’s how it’s gonna be.”

  “So how are you gonna do it?”

  “You don’t need to do anything special. Just listen to me and do what I say. And don’t do anything that I tell you not to.”

  “Yeah right! Okay, I’m off then. I need to go and see Sergei Rezvei. He also promised to help me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Why do I even bother? How’s he gonna help you? He'll give you some money and then what? You’ll go and try to win it back? And how are you gonna do that? You broke your phone last night, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, shit, you’re right!” he said, visibly upset. “And I don’t think Lena will let me back in the house. The last time she said that if I didn’t come home at night, she’d throw me out.”

  “Give me her number.”

  As he crouched in the corner, cupping his face in his hands, I spoke to his wife and told her that everything was all right with her husband and that he’d spent the night at my place. He couldn’t have called her because his telephone was broken and now I thought he’d just left for work.

  She replied coldly — but still I could detect the relief in her voice. That was good. She worried about him — she wasn’t completely indifferent which meant that not all was lost for my friend Gleb, an alcoholic gambler and the father of a family.

  Having finished speaking, I turned to him one last time. “So what did you decide, mister junkie?”

  “I’m not a...” he looked up at me. “Okay. Seriously, I just don’t understand how you can help but... ah, fuck it. Let’s do it your way. What do you want me to do? And what do you want me not to do?”

  “I want you to throw your clothes in the wash and get your ass in the shower.”

  Don’t ask me how it worked — and I still hadn’t had the time to ask Martha about it — but apparently, by interfering in his life, I’d somehow set deadlines for all of his debuffs. Now they were limited to 21 days. Three weeks. It was the same thing that had happened to me when I’d made the decision to quit smoking. Provided he didn’t play and drink for three weeks, he could kiss his addictions goodbye.

  It hadn’t worked with his smoking, though. He refused point black to give up the only thing that still made him happy.

  Once the freshly-minted Gleb had left the shower and put on my old shirt and pants, we sat down for a good cup of black coffee. Instead of the shirt that Vazgen had ripped last night, I had to put on one of the two I’d bought during my stint at Ultrapak. It didn’t fit me very well anymore because at the time, my belly had been bigger and my shoulders narrower, but you couldn’t really see it under the suit jacket.

  It took me another half-hour to fill him in on all the details of my plan, having to put up with all his constant chuckling. And once I’d announced to him one of the main points of my idea, he very nearly knocked his coffee over,

  “You’re mad if you believe in that crazy plan of yours!”

  “Listen, we had an agreement,” I snapped. “I do all the thinking. Your job is to do what I say.”

  “Yes, Sir! No, Sir! Three bags full, Sir!” he saluted jokingly.

  “Finish your omelet, Private! That’s my first order!”

  He heaved a mocking sigh and tucked into my level-5 Cooking Skill masterpiece as Boris cast unfriendly looks at him from the corner of the kitchen.

  * * *

  AT 9.15 A.M., I led Gleb into our office. The other guys said their hellos, then waited curiously to see how I was going to introduce the newcomer.

  “Guys,” I said, “I’d like you to meet Gleb. A very good graphic designer. Gleb, the macho over there is Alik. He’s my friend and partner. And this nice girl is Stacy.”

  The two men shook hands[34]. Then I gently pushed his jaw back into place as he stared at Stacy, puppy-eyed.

  The girl curtsied to him jokingly, “Very nice to meet you, Gleb!”

  Having got a grip on himself, he finally said, “I like this job already! Show me where I sign!”

  We had a quick briefing to distribute the day’s tasks. Then Alik handed his — or Veronica’s, rather — laptop to Gleb who began by giving it a complete clean.

  “I’ve no idea, Alik, what kind of seedy places you’ve visited but I’m afraid, this laptop has contracted some alien life forms. You’ve got colonies and colonies of all sorts of bugs here. That’s not the way to treat your computer! Would you like me to clean it?” he waited for the ex-goon to give him a confused nod. “Excellent. I’m going to delete everything and save all the files on an external drive. Can I use yours, Phil? I’ll reinstall the OS, then install an antivirus and a good graphics suite. Now... To tell you the truth, it might be a good idea to clean it inside and out. It’s in such a state! You have a vacuum cleaner here?”

  Stacy nodded.

  “Excellent. And after lunch I’m gonna start on your company’s brand style. Boss, any suggestions regarding your logo?”

  “Can I put my two cents in, as well?” Stacy asked.

  “It should be black and red,” Alik announced.

  Gleg giggled. “You can say what you want. I’ll do it my way, anyway.”

  Now that he’d awoken from the fog of his gambling addiction, this was the Gleb that I knew and liked: my good old friend, responsible and thorough but still happy-go-lucky.<
br />
  “Would you like some coffee, Mr...” Stacy paused, waiting for him to give her his name.

  “Just call me Gleb.”

  “Coffee, Gleb? Or do you prefer tea? Okay. What kind of tea would you like? Black? With milk or lemon? Earl Gray? Or do you prefer fruit or herbal?”

  “Eh... I’d like a very strong black tea with some lemon,” Gleb placed an order. “Two sugars, please.”

  “Consider it done,” Stacy smiled. “Cookies?”

  When in God’s name had she had the time to buy all that? As I pondered over it, Gleb who’d taken Alik’s seat in his absence (because Alik had disappeared to see if he could procure another desk from Gorelik) gave me a look of mock surprise,

  “Cookies for the workers, what next? How about we put up a basketball hoop and set up some table soccer?”

  “Get working, you joker! Otherwise we might set up a bowling alley and use your head as a ball!”

  ‘You have no sense of humor, Phil. At all.”

  Before lunchtime, I’d managed to see a few visitors, speak to Veronica and discuss her work contract with her, then sat down with her and Mr. Katz to discuss all the finer details of our contract templates for both recruiting and outsourcing.

  After that, I went to see Rose regarding our tax returns and the pricing of our new services, then met up with Kesha and laid out my vision of his future work. Once he’d agreed, we shook on it and immediately began discussing the conditions we could offer our new customers, after which he left to prepare the draft of our business proposal.

  Panchenko, Ultrapak’s new commercial director, didn’t take my call and sent me a message,

  I’ll call you back later

  Closer to midday, the courier finally turned up on our doorstep and handed me a paper packet. One glance at the return address was enough to know what was inside.

  My heart started beating a little faster. I opened the packet and pulled out a book with a picture card inside,

  Dear Phil,

  Thank you so much from us all for investing so much heart into the life story of our father, grandfather and great-grandfather!

  Best regards,

  The Koutzel family

  I lovingly turned the book in my hands: a beautiful hardback entitled Vladimir Koutzel: His Own Story. The author’s name on the front page was mine:

  Philip O. Panfilov

  My throat seized. Sensing that something was wrong, the other guys stared inquiringly at me. Stacy came over to me.

  I handed her the book. “Here. I wrote it.”

  It passed from hand to hand. My first book! I couldn’t close new system messages fast enough, reporting my improved Reputation with Alik, Stacy, Gleb and later also with Kesha, Veronica, Mr. Katz and Rose once they’d heard the news and popped by to see the book. Now I had Respect with almost all of them, with the exception of Stacy which was still only Amicality.

  You could say what you want but being a writer was more than a profession...

  After lunch I used a break when we had no clients to leave the office and visit Cyril in the hospital. Also, I wanted to check out a nearby antique shop. In total, I’d counted about a dozen such shops in our city that sold antiques as well as magic and esoteric wares, and I fully intended to visit them all. You never know, I might come across something else which would give me a few extra stat points.

  As I left, I looked over the office and was touched by the idyllic atmosphere which reigned there. Stacy was cooing on the phone with a potential customer; Alik was sitting next to Gleb whispering words of advice while the latter was busy drawing our logo with his tongue between his teeth, languidly rejecting the ex-thug’s suggestions.

  I gestured to Stacy, signaling that I’d be gone for a couple of hours. She gestured back, asking me to wait for her. After a few minutes, she’d hung up and left the office.

  “Give me your hand,” she said.

  “Which one?”

  “The right one.”

  She produced a piece of red thread and tied it around my wrist, knotting it several times.

  “It’s for luck,” she whispered, gave me a peck on the cheek, then went back into the office, leaving me confused.

  What the hell was that?

  A Protective Red Wristband

  +2 to Luck

  So much for superstitions! The properties of this supposedly useless piece of red string were truly amazing. But what amazed me even more was Stacy’s behavior. We’d only known each other for three days and now this. Another puzzle to add to the mix.

  I arrived at the hospital a little earlier than the visiting hours. The patients were still having a nap, so I decided to spend the remaining thirty minutes browsing around the local antique shop. Its name was Rarity — and even though I couldn’t remember anything about WoW anymore, Diablo was still quite fresh in my memory.

  Having said that, the shop offered nothing that a gamer would consider a rarity. I knew because I’d checked and ID’ed virtually all of their stock. The only thing that had caught my attention was the enormous antique tome of A Gift to Young Housewives, or the Means of Lowering Household Expenses in Two Parts, 29th Edition by Elena Molokhovets[35], published in 1917 in Petrograd[36] by the First Printers’ Cooperative. This volume offered +4 to Housekeeping immediately upon reading. Still, the price tag of 80,000 rubles[37] had cooled me down somewhat. Shame. I really would have loved to learn how to set the table and clean the household silver.

  Cyril looked much better now — you could see it straight away. He'd lost some weight but his cheeks had acquired a healthy glow, and his eyes were full of life compared to when we’d first met.

  We didn’t get the chance to talk properly because his parents had arrived almost at the same time, so I just left him all the fruit and fresh juice I’d brought him[38] and prepared to leave.

  “Phil!” Cyril called after me.

  “Yes?”

  “Is it true what Greg said that you’ve opened your own business? I was wondering if you needed sales reps.”

  “If they’re like you, absolutely. Without a doubt.”

  He smiled and added sadly, “We got a new commercial director when Pavel left. He fired me in my absence, can you imagine? He didn’t need a sicko.”

  “Don’t worry, bro. Consider yourself hired.”

  “That’s good! I’ll keep you posted, then. They’re gonna discharge me next week, so I’ll call you.”

  “Sure. Get well soon!”

  When I left the hospital, I visited a few more antique and magic shops in the area but found nothing useful. The only thing I liked was a cuckoo clock but I wasn’t yet prepared to shell out a hundred grand[39] for +1 to Self-Discipline.

  I finally made it back to the office after 6 p.m. and found several customers waiting for me there with my fellow workers. I spoke to each of them and found suitable vacancies for all, then spent some time processing the data of those who’d come in my absence and sent it to Stacy.

  * * *

  TOWARD SEVEN-THIRTY in the evening we closed up the office. Stacy disappeared round the corner and Alik hurried off to see some friends. I took Gleb and dragged him off to a cheap diner nearby to get a bite to eat and to finally approach the most important part of our plan. Or rather, to discuss it first and approach it next. It would have been so much easier had I had more cash on me but I only had about five grand so we had to start by increasing my start capital — or should I say, my bankroll for today.

  Gleb was drooling in anticipation even though I’d strictly forbidden him to play. I hadn’t expected him to change his gambling habit overnight. Tonight, he was simply my guide and chaperone.

  Both of us were so anxious — Gleb even more than I — that we gobbled down our thick solyanka soup[40] without hardly tasting it.

  “They won’t even let us into the poker club where Dimedrol normally sits,” Gleb said. “The entrance fee alone is seven grand, that’s fourteen for the two of us. They’ll give us some chips for that money but only
enough for the small stakes table.”

  “But don’t you think we could win a little there and move to a table with higher stakes?”

  “Sure. If... or when we do win, then we can move. But it might take us... take you some time to do so. The entry to the VIP room is two hundred grand[41]. For two of us, it’s...”

  I scratched my head with my free hand. “Dammit. What if you wait for me at home?”

  “They won’t let you in without me. It’s a bit of a closed venue. Money alone isn’t enough to get you into the VIP room. I’ll have to vouch for you.”

  “Didn’t you say you weren’t welcome there anymore?”

  “You see,” he said, munching on some rye bread with his soup, “once I’d become a regular, they’d even let me in for less. They only stopped when I’d crossed the swords with Dimedrol. This time provided we can pay, they’ll let us in without a word. They’re obliged to. They receive a commission from each round, so the more money gets brought in, the better it is for them.”

  “In this case, we only have to work out how to turn my five grand into fourteen so we’re allowed in,” I said. “But remember I still have to pay for the meal.”

  “Okay. I know this underground joint. It’s a bit seedy but the entry fee is only a grand. It’s not far from here.”

  We finished our meal and spent some time trying to attract the waiter’s attention. The room was packed with customers, all shouting and chewing, so finally Gleg lost his patience and wandered off to ask for the bill.

  We paid and left the stifling diner, then took a cab to the place he’d been talking about.

  When we arrived, I realized it was situated directly opposite my parents’ house. It seemed like a good idea to go and visit them first to fill up on parental love and in turn, share a little filial affection.

  “Mind if we pop in to see my parents for ten minutes? I haven’t seen them for quite a while.”

  He shrugged. “Would you like me to wait for you here?”