GABRIEL #6
Yeah, so they’re both terrified, but that’s nothing new.
For the past two months I’ve given them a series of nightmares.
They’ve been living with the idea that their son threw away a solid chunk of his life, calling everywhere they could, begging strangers for help, reading everything about cases like mine, going to endless meetings with lawyers, stressing themselves out.
After their calls, I pick up one more from Marlow.
Interestingly, his reaction is a bit different.
He’s the only one who actually tells me I made a reasonable choice.
I’ll have something that at least resembles freedom.
I’ll be able to walk around like a normal person, even if only wherever Blue goes, but I won’t have to spend ten years locked inside a cell.
All three of them are glad I’ll be able to finish college, and my dad is relieved that the contract doesn’t require me to stay faithful to Blue.
You could say it’s basically an open marriage arrangement, so he’s already hoping I’ll find some omega during that time and start a family.
For me, those thoughts feel very far away right now. Of course I want a family someday, but I want it with someone I’m deeply in love with, a person who becomes my whole world, and at this point that just doesn’t seem to be anywhere along my path.
All these conversations with relatives only confirm that my choice comes with many worries and uncertainties, and that what’s waiting for me will be a serious challenge.
Today, I was even granted permission by the prison warden to use a laptop, so I spend hours digging through everything I can find online about Blue Lowen.
Marcel talked about him constantly, but always with this intense, almost obsessive hatred, and everything I knew about Blue came filtered through Marcel’s perspective, so I figure now it’s time to finally read something neutral instead.
Eventually, I come across a long interview Blue gave in his younger years, shortly after receiving the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking discoveries in tissue regeneration.
The interview is extensive, surprisingly personal, and far more honest than I expected.
Blue talks openly about the accident he suffered when he was fifteen and a half years old.
During a visit to a shooting range with his older brother Victor, a stray bullet struck him in the lower abdomen, destroying his omega reproductive system beyond repair. Later, after complications and a severe infection, his neck glands had to be removed as well.
What catches me off guard the most is how direct he's about the aftermath, admitting that the accident permanently affected his life and greatly reduced his interest in sexual activity and in finding a mate.
Suddenly, all those rumors online about him living like a monk, celibate, don’t sound exaggerated anymore.
I lean back from the screen, staring at nothing for a while as I slowly piece everything together in my head.
This whole subject of Blue’s accident came up more than once in conversations with Marcel.
He used to call Blue ‘that cursed eunuch’ and say the world would’ve been better off if Lowen had died back then instead of poisoning it with his ideas.
There was always a poster of Blue hanging on Marcel’s wall, a target drawn directly over his forehead in thick red marker.
Sometimes Marcel would go on long, unsettling rants about killing Blue, about putting a bullet through his head and solving the problem once and for all.
I listened, but I never fully engaged with it because it always felt detached from reality, more like the kind of edgy fantasy people throw around when they’re angry than something serious.
But now, after everything Marcel said about wanting his group to become more ‘radical’, I’m starting to wonder if those fantasies were never fantasies at all, but actual intentions, the early shape of a plan he was already preparing to carry out.
In the morning, my father pulls up outside the prison.
My dad and Marlow are in the car with him.
They bring two suitcases packed with my things, and they’ve already bought me a few suits that are supposed to fit my new job as a bodyguard. I’ve never worn anything like that before, but I guess that’s about to change.
Before I’m taken to the police van that’s supposed to bring me to Blue’s skyscraper, my father steps in front of me and places his hands on my shoulders.
"Please, be reasonable, Gabriel. Try to follow the rules, because if you violate the terms of that contract, you’re going back to prison with no chance of appeal, and then no one will be able to help you."
Without looking him in the eyes, I mutter quietly, "Yeah, yeah, I know, Fa. I know what I’m doing."
"Do you, really?" He squeezes my shoulders tighter. "Did you know what you were doing the day you went to burn down that lab?"
"Oh, c’mon, Fa!"
I pull out of his grip and take a step back, but that’s not the end of it.
My dad steps closer, one hand tightly clutching his favorite cyan talisman, the one he always wears on his chest, supposedly to ward off bad luck, while the other hand brushes against my face as he starts speaking in Russian.
At home, he always spoke to us in his native language, while my father used English. That’s just how it turned out, so Russian is basically my second language.
"Son, you know I’ve always had good intuition.
A lot of people in my family do. Your father is worried…
but after thinking it through, I’m actually relieved.
I don’t know why, but I have a good feeling about all of this.
Just do me one favor, keep an open mind.
Forget what you used to think or feel about your new boss, and start a new path.
Fate put you on it for a reason, Гаврюша[1].
I want to believe this will all end well.
And… I would very much enjoy a large pack of cute grandchildren. "
"Папа![2]"
But I don’t comment on anything else because I don’t know what to say.
I know he really does have strong intuition, almost something supernatural.
I’ve always suspected my own abilities might come from his side of the family.
He’s told me more than once how strange they are, what kinds of weird genetic mutations show up there.
Our grandfather could supposedly turn into something strange, he was called an ‘oboroten’[3] in Russia, as my dad used to whisper under his breath.
We don’t have contact with that side of the family anymore, except for my dad’s brother, who lives nearby with his family, but I know I shouldn’t just brush off what he says.
So I just nod and pull him into a tight hug.
"One more thing," he adds. "We talked to the dean, and you’ll be able to attend your classes online. They’ve been going for a few weeks already, but you can still join, and I’m sure you’ll catch up quickly.
I’ll send all the login details to your phone, everything we got from your program coordinator.
You’re officially reinstated for this academic year. "
"Thank you, Dad…"
At the end, Marlow walks up to me.
His silver-green eyes, slightly slanted like a cat’s, study me carefully.
"You got yourself into this mess on your own… but I still think you got out of it the best way possible, so yeah, congrats on escaping such brutal consequences. Most people would just end up doing ten years. I’m rooting for you, and we’ll stay in touch.
If you need anything, you know where to find me. "
Then he pulls me into a hug.
A police van rolls up, the one that’s supposed to transport me.
A prison officer officially straps an ankle monitor onto me, linking it to a transmitter Blue carries.
He explains that it’ll activate the moment I get close to him and send my location to a central unit. If I move more than about three hundred and twenty-eight feet away, an alarm will go off, so I’d "better not do that", he adds with a sour smile.
I get into the van and look out the window at my family standing there, watching me with concern.
As we start moving, I exchange one last look with my father.
I can see the sadness in his eyes, but I don’t let myself sink into that mood. Right then and there, I decide I’m going to handle this the best I can. I made this mess, and now I have to deal with it.
Half an hour later, we reach downtown.
Massive skyscrapers owned by the richest families in the city rise all around us.
First I spot Ferro Development, owned by Ennio Ferro, the same guy who talked to me after my fight. He’s one of the members of the Ferro crime family, and I somewhat know him because he’s a regular at underground fights, often hanging around the fighters’ area.
Then we pass the tower belonging to D-Project, the company owned by Edgar’s father, Mr. Johnson.
A few minutes later, we drive by the DevApp high-rise building, where my cousin Winter works, the place run by Blue’s older brother, Jacob.
We also pass the East Time Magazine tower, owned by Victor Lowen, the media tycoon of their family.
They’re a powerhouse in this world, and I’m about to work for the richest one of them all, the CEO of the largest pharmaceutical corporation on the planet, a multiple award-winning genius scientist.
I try to wrap my head around the scale of what’s happened in my life, but it still feels too unreal for that.
The van stops in the parking lot.
Two officers lead me out and remove my handcuffs.
At that moment, the prosecutor’s office employee who rode with us smiles in an overly sweet way and says,
"Oh, look at that, kid. Your ankle monitor just picked up the signal. Mr. Lowen is about three hundred and twenty-eight feet away."
The officers head back to the van, and he follows them, leaving me standing there, completely thrown off.
"Wait, so what am I supposed to do…?"
"Uh… go find him?" he suggests with a dry smile. "And I’d hurry if I were you." He taps on his tablet. "The signal’s pretty weak, which means he’s right at the edge of the range. Don’t let him move out of it, or you’ll be in trouble. Good luck."