The blue moon had climbed to the very zenith and declared war on the darkness from there. Bright light flooded the roofs, walls, and alleys, forcing shadows to cower beneath the soles of their boots. The moonlight pierced even the masks of Delta-Null, revealing the whites of their eyes behind the tinted glass.
Freya desperately wanted to turn back time so that this conversation had never happened. So that she'd never stepped into that cursed apartment. The sheer volume of terms—Pruners, Illuminati, traitors—made her head spin.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Freya said.
“Affirmative,” the Chief replied.
“Where’s the nearest one?”
Before the agent could answer, an electronic lock beeped behind her. Freya flinched and spun around to face the door that had just opened behind her. It was so thick with graffiti that it had been completely invisible until now. Beyond the door was a darkness that reeked of rancid oil and french fries.
Freya recoiled. But the Delta-Null agents made no move to shield her from whatever danger lurked in the darkness. They just stood there, the whites of their eyes glinting behind the tinted glass.
“That door wasn't there before!” Freya exclaimed. "Who did this?"
After all, a crane had plucked them from a traffic jam, and a parking bollard had shielded them from a reckless driver. Delta-Null was clearly capable of…
“You did it, milord,” the Chief interrupted her thoughts.
“Thanks,” Freya muttered automatically.
Only then did she process what the agent had said. Freya gave a quick nod—Right, of course—and waved a hand.
“Wait outside.”
Goosebumps raced across her skin as Freya stepped into the oily, hot darkness beyond the door, where, in theory, the bathroom was located.
Of course, Freya had no intention of using the bathroom. She’d only gone in to give them the slip. Besides, every woman on earth had used the old bathroom trick at least once in her life.
Only this time, Freya wasn't trying to escape some guy hitting on her. The plan was forming on the fly: if she came in the back, she’d leave through the front, onto the other side of the street. From there, in the dense grid of buildings, it would be easy to get lost. Plenty of shopping centers cut straight through the block.
The hardest part was trying to flush her phone down the toilet; it stubbornly kept floating back up. To hell with it.
Freya left the restroom, checked that the Delta-Null agents were still waiting outside, then crossed the tiny dining area with its ten worn-out seats. And found the front door locked with a keypad. Someone had actually bothered to lock up their fried chicken from thieves.
But Freya knew what to do now.
“Open!” she commanded and pulled the handle again.
The door gave way.
So, not only did Freya now know Pruner secrets, she had Pruner powers too. The power to command doors. And Delta-Null. And maybe other things. It would have been the best Christmas gift ever, if Freya wasn't scared out of her wits right now.
Too bad she was never, ever going to use this newfound ability again. Ever.
She had to run—yes, run, as far away as possible. Get lost in the city blocks, hide from the dark eye on the fiery beam in the sky, blend in with the crowd. Her legs were already trembling, ready to carry her to the ends of the earth, away from Delta-Null and all this Pruner business.
Freya immediately dismissed the thought. The crowd—a fickle, inert mass—was incapable of standing up for itself. She needed to get to her friends.
Where? It didn't matter. No matter where Freya was in Manhattan, she had friends. There were friends-as-in-acquaintances, the kind who always liked your new posts and introduced you to the right people. And then there were friends-as-in-friends, the kind who helped you cheat on your taxes and deductions. Right now, any friend would do.
But first, she had to get rid of the damn bugs. Her computer was still in its bag on the fire escape, and she’d just ditched her phone, but that wasn’t everything. She still had her smartwatch on.
Her Apple Watch may have died hours ago, but she ripped it off anyway and threw it in the trash. If it were working now, it would show just how sky-high her pulse and stress levels were. People didn't survive that.
And after the watch, into the bin with the chicken bones went the katana with the rose on the hilt, along with its woven sheath and belt. Anyone could spot Freya by that stupid sword on her back without any bugs. The only thing she kept was the note from Roman the Pruner; they couldn't have bugged a piece of paper, and you never knew when information might come in handy.
Ideally, she should have changed her race and gender too, but there was no time for that. With one last look back, Freya burst out of the cafe’s main entrance—onto the street parallel to the alley where the Delta-Null agents were waiting.
The road was clogged with the densest traffic jam, and Freya darted forward. She immediately crouched behind one car to look around, scuttled on bent knees to another, and once sure she wasn't seen, straightened up and broke into a full sprint.
Her legs carried her between the abandoned cars in the jam. She nimbly vaulted over open doors and blocking hoods, leaped over discarded items and bicycles. People kept popping up, but Freya dodged behind cars, into alleys, around nearby street corners. In the dark, all cats are gray, and all figures are black and look like Delta-Null agents—and Freya wasn't about to test her luck.
From the narrow streets, old brick buildings, and colorful signs, the woman realized she was in Chinatown. The neighborhood was utterly unfashionable, un-corporate, grimy, and completely unfamiliar to Freya. In the unbelievable November heat, smells of oil and pepper bled out from the tourist traps, mingled with the exhaust fumes, and clung to her hair and skin, stinging her eyes.
Freya stopped, ducked into an alley, and planted her palms on her knees, gasping for air. Her lungs were on fire: she hadn't run like this in a hundred years. She was desperately thirsty. The t-shirt under her blazer was plastered to her back. God, New York was hotter than Mexico City in summer.
And on top of that, Freya's plan hadn't worked.
Navigating Manhattan, especially in an unfamiliar area, turned out to be tough. The streets were laid out in a strict grid between identical buildings. Left turns were indistinguishable from right turns; all the signs were equally garish. Freya finally realized she was running in circles when she passed the same red Jaguar, abandoned with its doors wide open, for a second time.
She'd done a great job confusing her tracks, looping around the same streets in a panic attack! Or maybe it was because for years, Freya hadn't even gone for coffee without a navigator in her ear, focused on her own affairs.
The woman stripped off her blazer, wiped the sweat from her forehead with a sleeve, and saw that the shoulders were filthy. The fabric on one was torn open, the lining poking through. It must have been the seatbelt buckle in that shitty old cab, or maybe the bathroom stall in the dark. A sharp pang of loss hit her—the blazer was custom-tailored—but she tossed the ruined thing to the ground anyway.
After all, it would be harder for anyone to recognize her in just a drenched t-shirt. Freya tilted her head back to gulp in some air—and her face lit up.
Above her, rising over the rooftops of Chinatown, the skyscrapers of Wall Street towered against the night sky—tall and pristine, like something from another world. Their glass facades caught the glint of the moon and the anxious blue-and-red of sirens; they reflected the flames of fires Freya couldn't see. Every now and then, the mirrored walls were pierced from within by the beams of flashlights: life was still stirring in the financial district.
Wall Street. Wolf Street. That's where Freya needed to be, right now.
The catastrophe had hit at the end of the workday, and the entire financial elite was still holed up in their skyscrapers. And if anyone knew how to take care of themselves, it was the brokers and financiers who risked their lives daily, snatching profits from the jaws of probability, right under the noses of federal regulators.
Freya had a lot of friends among the bold and successful brokers. Real ones, too. The kind of friends you wouldn't just hide from the IRS with, but who'd help you hide a body or two.
And right now, Freya was going to hide herself.
The woman caught her breath, and a confident, brilliant smile played on her lips. Make a plan, achieve the goal, then make a new, bigger, bolder plan. The holy trinity of success, one that worked even when the Deep State's portals were down and fiery beams were crashing into the earth from the sky.
But first, she had to retrieve something.
Freya bent down to the discarded blazer, pulled Roman's note from the pocket, and read it again. What an asshole that Pruner was, not being able to arrange things properly. Still, she wasn't about to throw the note away. And since there were no pockets anywhere else on her clothes—the scourge of even high-end women's fashion—Freya shoved the note into her sneaker.
With nothing left to fix or fuss over, there was nothing to do but set off—to her friends.
She made surprisingly good progress. Now, with the glass towers of the financial district as her landmark, Freya moved faster—even if she had to zigzag around the buildings blocking her path. The skyscrapers grew taller overhead, blotting out the starry sky. And as they grew, so did a clamor from somewhere nearby, just a few blocks away.
She could hear loud pops now, like firecrackers going off. And Freya, who had grown up on a quiet ranch, could only guess that this was the sound of gunfire echoing between tall buildings.
Moving alone started to feel unnerving, but finding company proved difficult. When the woman had been running from the cafe and Delta-Null, she'd kept bumping into people, getting spooked, and bolting. But now, the streets of Chinatown were deserted. The doors to Asian shops and restaurants on both sides of the street were flung wide open, their insides in disarray. Near an Indian pawn shop, boxes of phones lay scattered; iPhones glittered in the moonlight. Whoever had started the looting had abandoned it halfway.
The first person Freya saw was a lone man with a backpack. But when she decided to call out to him, he flinched and bolted into the darkness.
Pathetic, Freya thought. Still, she stopped at the nearest shop window to check her reflection—just in case the whole ordeal had actually transformed her into a Pruner 'milord.'
But the reflection staring back at her was the same Freya as before, just a little rumpled, her styling gone. And the fact that she was still herself was the problem. This way, they'd find her without a problem. The woman’s legs picked up into a brisk walk that threatened to break into a run at any moment, despite her exhaustion.
Then, around the corner, Freya ran into a group of Chinese people—five men and three women, herding a handful of children.
The group was hauling bulging plaid bags and chattering energetically among themselves. Draped over their shoulders were black 'trash-bag' style puffer jackets, tied by the sleeves like capes. In the heat, the men had rolled their shirts up to their bellies, and the women were fanning themselves with their hands. But they didn't take off the jackets: the money for them had been paid just recently.
Stumbling upon the Chinese, the woman froze and had no time to dash back around the corner. When they saw Freya, and especially her reaction, they grew wary too. They huddled closer together, shielding the children.
But then they took a closer look and started waving her over enthusiastically.
“Lady! Come-come with us!” they explained in broken English. “Orange Man Schramp make military save everyone! Come help!”
What?
Freya glanced around involuntarily. The group was making a hell of a racket; any second now, car alarms would start blaring. Getting lost in a crowd would be impossible with them. But they looked harmless and seemed to be heading her way. And even if they weren't, they clearly knew more about what was going on than she did.
Freya walked up to them, even managed a “Nihao!” and a friendly smile. It worked. Soon, the women were fussing over the scrapes on her hands and knees, all in that same broken English.
“Is nothing. I good!” Freya said, using gestures to get her point across. “What Schramp do?”
One of the Chinese women nodded vigorously with a wide smile.
“Do good!” she said, drawing out the words. “Schramp make people good, soldiers bad!”
Then, turning to her companions, the woman suddenly switched to perfect, rapid-fire English.
“Get the woman some water so she can wash up and drink. Her lips are chapped!”
Freya was stunned, but the woman's gaze snapped back to her as she said, in broken English, “Drink-drink!” Freya was too exhausted to question it. She just reached for the water.
The man opened one of the bulging bags and pulled out a bottle of mineral water. The label depicted a snow-capped mountain range. Beneath it, in an Eastern-style font, were the words: “Tears of a Tibetan Dog.”
Freya took a sip without hesitation. It tasted like water from a cheap pitcher filter, but right now, it was sweeter than Norwegian spring water from a glass bottle. She drained it in two gulps, and they handed her a second. With that one, the woman helped her wash her face and rinse her hands.
She felt better. It wasn't just the water soaking into her like dry earth. The group had closed in around Freya, forming a tight circle that made her physically invisible—and for the first time, she was glad she’d never quite hit a model’s five-foot-eleven.
After quenching and cleaning Freya, the Chinese suddenly remembered they were actually in a hurry. Encircling the woman in a tight ring, they hoisted their bags and children and moved on. Luckily, Freya wasn't burdened with either load, so she started probing for information.
“Thanks!” she said. “So what’s the deal with the soldiers?”
“Soldiers not let go! And shoot. Schramp say: let go! No shoot!” the woman began to explain.
One of the men, who, feeling self-conscious, pulled his shirt back down over his belly, jumped into the conversation.
“Soldiers let go!” he argued. “Soldiers help evil rich, good poor no help!”
The woman turned on her companion, indignant. And to Freya’s astonishment, who thought she must have misheard the first time, she again switched to perfect English—fast and dramatic.
“Don’t confuse the lady! We were told the military knows the way out, and they're evacuating members of the Deep State, firing on civilians and police who've sided with Schramp! What's this 'good poor people' nonsense, are you insane? She'll think we're communists!”
The man, it turned out, was also perfectly fluent. He rattled off a reply.
“That's what I'm saying! But you told her the soldiers 'not let go.' 'Let go' implies they're being denied permission to do something they're capable of. But we don't even know where to go! And Schramp doesn't know! So it's the wrong word. You should have said, 'they're not helping.'”
Freya couldn't believe her ears.
"I understand you just fine anyway," she interrupted them both and got to the point. "Where are they evacuating the Deep State? What exactly is Shramp planning to do?"
The Chinese abruptly exchanged glances, then goggled at Freya. And the woman saw that the whole group was staring at her with a strange expression of delight on their faces."Oh, so you speak our language?" the first Chinese woman managed. "That's wonderful! You can translate for us!"
"Hold on," Freya said, also thoroughly bewildered. "Translate for who? And what does the Deep State have to do with any of this?”
“They’re trying to escape, like rats from a sinking ship,” the woman replied. “They’re the ones who did this—teleported Manhattan using 5G towers. But Schramp will fix it. With our help.”
“Yeah. Schramp is gathering the people, because there are more of us than soldiers. And the police are on our side!” the man chimed in. “Together, we’ll drag those Deep State’s rats out of their bunkers and make them help us.”
The man hoisted the bag under his arm and unzipped it, revealing the contents in the moonlight. Freya’s heart sank as she saw it was filled with heavy, razor-sharp Chinese cleavers. He ran a finger along one of the blades and smiled.
“My great-grandfather used to cut through Japanese tanks with these in the war. The spiral of history, you know?”
Oh my God. These harmless-looking people, who looked like they'd just looted a corner store, were on their way to kill people. To kill people in the name of Schramp.
The insanity level had just spiked so sharply that Freya didn't get a chance to ask why the Deep State had suddenly decided to come out of the shadows, or why it was Ronald Schramp, and not Ronald McDonald, leading them into battle.
“And we would be so, so grateful for your help!” the woman rattled on. “I’m the only one in our group who speaks any English, and it’s not very good!”
The woman bowed deeply to Freya. The other Chinese people bowed too, prodding their children on the back of the head to make them show respect to the white, English-speaking lady. The man who was so particular about the word “let” also bowed, but not without adding his two cents.
“Actually, I have a C1 on the Cambridge scale. I just don’t get a lot of speaking practice.”
Freya, who was firmly convinced that all of them spoke English to varying degrees, grew suspicious. It all sounded like a confusing mess, complete nonsense—a collective Chinese delusion. Just as Susan was seeing imaginary Chinese people and orbital laser beams, these real Chinese people were obsessed with ‘evil rich people’ and 5G. They all deserved each other.
But at least Susan's words had a grain of sense. After all, they’d all seen the heat, the fiery beam on the horizon was still reflecting off the skyscrapers, and the military was up to God knows what. That "non-nuclear alert" on their phones was proof enough.
The Chinese, on the other hand, were genuinely insane. And their obsession with Ronald Schramp was the dead giveaway.
It was hard to imagine a worse leader for a popular uprising than the billionaire Schramp—especially against the Deep State, when just acknowledging its existence was enough to destroy your reputation as a sane person. Schramp had been canceled for trying to stage a coup after losing the '20 election, indicted for tax fraud in '22, declared legally insane in '23, and had been behind bars from '24 until today.
You didn't need to be a CIA confidant to see, even back in '20, which way the wind was blowing for Mr. Schramp: straight into a federal prison.
Even after the Capitol storming, Freya hadn't written a word about Shramp. Not even the bad stuff Mr. K occasionally hinted at. She just watched the Twitter tycoon, crowd king, and patriarch darling fade away in silence—a warning from the Shadow Government to all would-be rebels.
"Rebel," of course, was too fine a word for Schramp. Freya certainly didn't think he'd suffered for some noble cause. The whales, as always, were just fighting over fish. The wolves had simply devoured the old, weakened pack leader. Business as usual in the real economy, where the laws of the wild apply.
Ultimately, only an idiot would think the Deep State was created for anything besides tax evasion, enriching ancient clans, lobbying, and carving up government contracts. An idiot who couldn't grasp the complexity of the real world and was looking for a simple, flashy explanation.
Until today, Freya thought, watching the bright pillar of light play across the Wall Street skyscrapers.
Then she remembered that just a half-hour ago, she had commanded a kill squad, spoken with prophets, and controlled technology—if only for a moment. The Deep State had apologized to her because the portals weren't working.
And in the woman's mind, it all finally clicked. If not about Schramp's role in all this, then about her own abilities. The fact that she was suddenly understanding Chinese wasn't surprising at all.
Freya broke the lingering silence with a deliberately casual wave of the water bottle.
“Of course, I’ll help. You know what they say: once you share ‘Dog’s Tears,’ you’re in it ’til the end. We’ll find Schramp and help him.”
The Chinese woman laughed, blushing.
“It’s just a pretty character. Helps it sell to Americans,” she confessed. “Oh, one time a guy wanted to get a tattoo of ‘Tiger Sperm’ on his arm, and then he came in and…”
“Right,” Freya cut in. “But you’re going the wrong way.”
The group stopped dead in their tracks and stared at her. Finding herself in the familiar position of being the center of attention, Freya felt another jolt of energy.
“I know Schramp personally,” Freya said, which was true, and then immediately lied. “And a friend of mine just told me that Schramp has gone to Wall Street to get some secret papers.”
“Wall Street?”
“Where do you think the Deep State runs the world from? The stock exchange! They inflate market bubbles, and the government prints money to bail them out. It’s all to create inflation and devalue people’s savings, forcing them to spin the hamster wheel until they die,” she said, the words coming to her with surprising ease. “There's no time to explain everything now. We need to hurry.”
“But that cop said—” the English expert began. But the Chinese women started swatting him with their palms.
“Did you see the lady’s skirt? It would take a whole day at the factory just to copy one like that!” one of them scolded. “But the lady is here, with us, speaking our language and wants to help!”
“Don’t be so ungrateful, Penjin!” shouted the second, bowing to Freya. “Please forgive him, he’s too smart for his own good.”
“It’s fine!” Freya rushed to reassure them. “We’re all doing what we can. But if we stand around, secret Deep State squads will pick us off one by one.”
The Chinese immediately grabbed their bags and children, spun around, and hurried off toward Wall Street—where Freya had directed them, where the glass towers shimmered with the light of an unfamiliar sky. All she had to do now was keep up. Thankfully, she was traveling light, save for the corner of the Pruner’s note in her sneaker that occasionally tickled her heel.
Freya was surprised at her own ability to improvise so easily within a foreign, conspiratorial repertoire. Maybe it was all the thinking about Schramp that had put her in the right vibe. But none of it mattered: she was finally moving in the right direction, shielded from hostile eyes by a wall of bodies.
Too bad she couldn't make a call; the group's phones were dead, even the one iPhone that sported a meter-long extendable antenna. Maybe it was for the best. Freya promised herself she would ask someone to take care of these people, even get them on a plane or a boat out of the disaster zone.
For some reason, she felt certain things would be resolved just like that. She forbade herself from thinking about her sudden superpowers. Success required focus.
But on the way, Freya couldn't help but sneak a glance at the bottle's label, trying to find a single Chinese character. Instead, she saw that in the word ‘dog,’ the letter ‘d’ looked like a head with one ear cocked, while the ‘g’ curled down like a tail. The longer Freya stared, the more the dog seemed to emerge: fuzzy and elusive, like an image in a stereogram.
A bright, thrilling sense of dissonance shot through the woman. The way it feels on mushrooms, when you take just a little more than a helpful microdose. She felt like she was on the verge of understanding something truly, deeply important. But she didn't get the chance to look any longer.
A jaunty whistle cut through the air above their heads.
Followed by a man’s shout:
“Get the Illuminati, bitch!”