He holds the steering wheel in his knees, he shifts gears with his right hand and eats his kebab while holding it in his left hand.
I look at him worried and I wonder what will he do when we get to the first curb.
-Where do you live? – He asks me.
I hear the front bumper scraping against one of the tires: he duct taped it, but it doesn’t seem to be a long lasting solution.
-Busto Arsizio. Northern outskirts – I answer.
He raises an eyebrow.
-Then you’re in the Delta team. Very well. What did you do to end up here? Are you a killer? –
The noise the straw is making tells me that I finished my coke. I put it in the cup holder.
– I am a thief –
He turns to me.
He’s not looking where he is going.
He looks at me.
He’s still not looking where he is going.
– Watch where you’re going, what the fuc_ – I am holding the steering wheel.
– What the fuck are you? – He blurts out while still staring at me.

Apparently the road is none of his concern, but it is mine.
– I am a thief! A thief ok? You know? Those people that break into your house and steal your stuff. Now would you please look at where you’re going? –
– And what the fuck are you doing here? Above all, what the fuck are you doing in my car if you’re just a fucking thief?! –
– You really like the word fuck, don’t you? Do you have to put it in a sentence at least five or six times to make you feel realized? THE ROAD! –
He slams on the breaks.
The seatbelt works outstandingly, otherwise I would now be conversing with the radiator.
– Ok, let’s go in order. You can’t be just a stupid thief for two, actually, for three good reasons.-
I snort.
-First: You wouldn’t have been sent to this world. Second: you wouldn’t be in team Delta. Third: they wouldn’t have assigned you to me! –
At this point I get pissed.
– I don’t even know what the fuck is team Delta, okay? – He puts a hand on his forehead and leans on the window foreseeing a long discussion. – And, to be precise, I don’t even know who you are! – I continue – All I know is that you dragged me into a Die Hard style battle the minute I met you, without even telling me your name. And I still don’t know why we killed those guys! –
He pulls out a small box from his shirt pocket, he throws whatever is in it in his mouth, and then drains something from a flask that was in the glove compartment.
– Listen up Princess, I already have a headache the size of a Zeppelin, so let’s stay calm ok? –
– Not likely, I’m pissed and I demand the right to express it! I was just quietly collecting my points when Mister Diamond Brain comes and feeds me to the refugees and to a crazy and filthy warmonger –
He spreads his arms out – Did you think this was a date, Cookie? –
He gets out of the car before I can answer.
I open the door, I remember the belt when it strangles me, I unbuckle myself and catch up with him.
He is opening the trunk.
I’m about to answer him when he lifts the false bottom of the trunk and anchors it so that it stands on its own.
Below it there are folders, a laptop, graphics and a lot of notes and data sheets that I don’t understand immediately. He moves the Asus with little grace and gets a folder that was all crumpled up beneath it.
The way he’s handling the netbook clogs one of my mitral valves.
– Stop! You brake it like this – I embrace the computer – You need to handle it gently…-
– What, that thing? I never even turned it on. Shelv gave it to me when I asked him for some documents. I asked him if he was taking me for a ride and he then proceeded to give them to me in dear old paper-
He sits on the back of the trunk and opens the folder in his hands.
I don’t put the computer down.
I sit next to him and peek. He hands me a couple of sheets.
– As I get it, they didn’t explain you a fuck. So: the Confederation has the duty to control the refugees. People can move legally from our world to this one only if they get all their powers blocked out and, even then, this possibility is granted only in exceptional cases. Otherwise, if you’re there you have to stay there. If you are a convict, you serve as an ally. In this case, only half of your powers get blocked through this lousy bracelet – He raises his right hand to show me a bracelet which is exactly the same as mine – and they assign you different missions. Each completed mission will gain you a point. According to your sentence you have to collect a certain number of points. So far this has been a brief, you already knew all this, right banana bunch? –
Banana bunch?
As a matter of fact my quiff is a bit flashy, but no one had yet compared me to a bunch of bananas.
I look up at the sky and remain silent, so he continues.
– Right. The Confederation has its own procedure to handle all this. They manage to intercept the moment in which a refugee enters this world. I don’t know what fucking interference is generated but it is perceived by the Shield tools. So they know exactly how many people from our world are on this one. The problem is catching them. Usually they send an ally to the exact point in which they perceived the interference, but the refugees aren’t always so slow, most of the times they can blend in with the people from this world and, once they’re infiltrated, it’s a pain to catch them. Unless they use magic. Luckily this often happens because most of them feel like a God in the face of these humans who know nothing about magic, so they suck their own dick and that’s when the Intra Dimensional Shield Confederation finds them, sends an ally who either sends the refugee home, but it happens very rarely, or kills him, which is what usually happens.-
He pauses, takes the cigarette package. – Are you following me? –
– I am, I’m not an idiot.-
I take one of his cigarettes. He gives me a dirty look but doesn’t complain. He moves a couple of filthy sheets in the folder in his hand.
– Right… Now: I am no longer an ally, meaning, I was one but I finished collecting my points, so I now work part-time for the Confederation.-
– And what would your permanent job be? – I ask
– I’m a trucker –
Well, I guess he couldn’t be a supermarket clerk…
He doesn’t catch my expression and continues – Particularly I want to get this asshole who has taken the Iantor. Now, that’s my mission, and yours too now – he hands me a personal card.
It’s a file with a picture and a resumé of a guy named Sin. The surname has been canceled with a black marker as other information on the page.
There’s a picture.
An ephebic guy, pale, in a short hairdo with strands sticking out. The hair is an amaranth color with black on the tips. His eyes are white and he has a tattoo on his left cheek right below the eye in the form of a treble clef.
Light Novel - Service's code – Gosh… Who is he? A visual kei singer? – I laugh – I guess he’s also gay, is it written in here? – I start browsing when I get punched on my nape.
– Ouch! – I protest.
– Try to be serious, this one here is not easy to track down. I’ve already sent him back once, and I assure you that it wasn’t a piece of cake! –
I mutter and continue to read the file. I almost swallow my cigarette when I read Sevyhal’s Twins.- Sevyhal’s Twins!? By the Gods! He’s one of those two?! – I flip out.
– He’s one of those two.- He confirms.
– And the other one? –
– … Is not him…-
– Damn it! They were the terror of my State! –
– Of all the world, not just your State – he mumbles.
– Well yes, but I knew that they worked mainly in Sevyhal… Damn it… This one is going to kill us… I heard that one is completely crazy, cold and ruthless! And the other one is a kind of human caterpillar, and wherever he goes nobody and nothing survives him –
-He is the first one.-
– Fuck fuck fuck… And I worked for him without knowing it, fuck fuck fuck… – I’m scared shitless only now that I know the whole story.
He turns -What did you do? –
I snort – The Iantor. I stole it without knowing what it was, he commissioned this job to me but I never saw his face, he was always under in a hood and a_-
-_ black loden overcoat – he finishes.
– Hum –
He suddenly grabs me by the throat shacking me back and forth like a crack stoned pit-bull.
– YOU GOT THE IANTOR FOR HIM? YOU FILTHY PIECE OF SHIT, I WILL MASSACRE YOU! –
He let’s go of me right before sending me into a lack of oxygen coma.

****

He took me back to my house to get my things, and then he literally threw everything in the car, including myself, and now I have absolutely no idea where we are headed to.
– Can I ask you again? –
– Fire away
– What’s your name?
-Tears, Tears Eirdar, and the pleasure is all yours Princess.-
It ‘s like a rock hitting a stained glass window. The intricate kind you find in churches. Everything in my brain smashes.
I should have known it was him, I should have guessed, it was so obvious.
I was sent to give support to the ally who is chasing the one who now holds the Iantor, and he is the one running after Sin. Still… It’s like when you have all the clues but you can’t put them together because you can’t accept the truth.
The brain simply refuses to conceive this truth.
This man in his thirties, with ripped jeans and a dirty tank top under a lorry driver’s plaid shirt. This ruthless warmonger, with no respect for anyone or anything and with a lexicon that doesn’t go over ten pages, eight of which full of profanities. With jokes recycled from movies like Bad Boys and Die Hard, who listens to music like Let Me Put My Love Into You by AC/DC.
This.
This is my myth. Tears Eirdar.
Maybe with some polishing and a couple of years of high school he could turn out to be a normal person. Or maybe not, some people are just like that and you can’t change them.
I remain silent in the passenger seat, utterly depressed.
– Well? Princess? Are your batteries dead? Do you like to be called by gay nicknames? It’s that why you still haven’t told me your name? –
-Zen. Zendaru Of Samirien –
I say half-heartedly as I look out from my window.
– Let’s recap: you are Zendaru Of Samirien and you’re a thief. Age? –
-17 –
I hear him curse and mumble at the same time something indefinable that sounds like a pit bull’s growl with a lot of phlegm.
The only things that I grasp are the words Shelv, bastard, child, thanks to a strange piece of uncontrolled wisdom, and puberty.
– When you’re done disparaging me only because I am a year younger than what you thought, explain me what’s the Delta team and how did you know that I was part of it, when I didn’t.-
We are now in the outskirt streets of the industrial area South of Busto Arsizio. It must be at least five minutes since all I could see from the windows is the reflection of deserted streets, fields full of rubble, factories and abandoned warehouses.
– The Delta Team – he says – is one of the teams in which the Confederation divides its allies. There are four teams, created accordingly to the ability of the allies constituting them. They are sent to different locations according to the actual hot spot the refugees are using. At the moment, the hot spot, which as you already know is not fixed, corresponds to the areas of Busto Arsizio, Castellanza and South Gallarate. So, in that area, they alternate the most skillful allies, who belong to the Delta Team. You were obviously not supposed to know the team location: allies are given only the essential information, like the location and the number of refugees to face. But if you had bothered to check your badge at least once, you would have known to which department you belonged.-
I don’t listen to him anymore and I’m widely grinning. The last thing I heard was that I belonged to the team of the most skilled allies.
Then I get depressed again, when I remember that the number one ally is the one sitting next to me…
****
I believe that Shelv omitted something in the rookie’s personal file he sent me.
Like that he’s stupid.
I see his reflection in the window from which he’s looking out, and one moment he is grinning and then, the moment after, he’s the personification of a depressed Emo.
I shrug and prefer not to think about it. Do I always have to work with insanes?
What the rookie doesn’t know, is that I know practically everything.
Of course I protested because he was 17. What the fuck, my house is not a nursery school. At seventeen you can’t even drive here.
But I also read the accounts of his previous missions and they were all performed very well. If instead of selling his mother to capture all of those refugees, he would have just killed them without giving it a second thought, he would have surely struggled less.
I guess in the end it’s the result that counts. And as Shelv says, maybe I do need some kind of conscience rubbing me the wrong way every now and then.
If it is true that I want to quit this shitty job. I keep on saying it but I do enjoy it after all.
However Shelv is not stupid. This guy has agility which, I must admit, I don’t have.
I pass by and destroy everything.
This guy also uses magic, and I don’t, except for lighting my cigarettes. Too cerebral.
Now I just have to test him a bit, I just hope that Sin doesn’t show up next time, otherwise we’ll be in deep shit.
Knowing him, I doubt he’ll be thrilled with the rookie.
In his sick mind he’ll see him as an intrusion into our private game.
Meanwhile, those fucking stitches they put me at the Confederation hospital are killing me. Isn’t there a way to heal human beings without forcing them to stay in bed for days?
I turn the second to the right and check my rearview mirrors: clear.
I take a sharp left turn and get into the old castoff railway underpass. If it wasn’t for the seatbelt, the blue rookie would crash on me. He shoots me a dirty look.
– Just in case someone was following us. Well, now they wouldn’t anymore – I explain him, then turn left and go down the underground garage entrance.
-But there was nobody! – He protests
By the Gods, what a drag. If he’s always like this I’ll kill him first.
****
– This is home – He says as he goes down an apparently abandoned basement.
I look around.
We came into the underground garage of an old textile factory, or at least that’s what I think, judging from the waste scattered all around. I can see old industrial-sized spools, garbage bags, pallets and boxes.
He stops. Then he presses a button on a remote hanging from the car keys and a wall opens.
Yes, an entire wall slides sideways.
I’m stunned.
As soon as we pass through it with the car, the wall closes behind us. I’m still staring at the wall that just closed when the engine stops, and he gets out of the car. I get out too and I find myself in front of the biggest means of transport that I’ve ever seen, at least on wheels.
I look at him and point to the huge black truck next to me – Is this your job? –
– Yep.- He grins, happily. Just like a father introducing his gorgeous daughter with multiple college degrees. Meet my joy and delight. I worked for it ten years and I still couldn’t legally afford it. This is my Magnum DXi 13 500 6×2 Pusher tractor –
– Huh… –
-What do you say? –
He’s waiting for me to tell him that it’s wonderful but I’m not a truck lover, and what he just told me sounded all Greek to me.
– Well… It’s big… – I say, keeping things vague.
– Yes, yes it’s huge! – He answers.
He’s really proud of it, you should see how he just lighted up.
He unloads my things and throws them to me.- Right, let’s settle down before the sucker strikes back –
I load the bag over one shoulder and the backpack over the other one and join him.
-What do you mean? That we both now live here? –
– No, I had you collect your stuff to go camping this week end –
– I don’t see why we couldn’t work together while living in different houses –
– Were you born stupid or were you just waiting for me? – This macho attitude is starting to annoy me. He then continues – No, really, enlighten me. When a refugee passes the border it takes about 2 seconds before the Confederation finds out, then another 30 to call the closest ally, then it takes about 10 to 14 more minutes just to get there. If I then have to add some more time to come and pick you up at home as if we were going out on a date, then it would just be easier for me to go there by myself! Don’t you think? –
Just the thought of it makes me sick.
We’re going up with a shaky hoist and I’m feeling more and more depressed. A guy like this will definitely live in a filthy hovel. Not that I’m the perfect housewife who keeps everything clean and perfect, but I honestly don’t know what to expect from him. I already foresee week old pizza boxes, beer cans on the floor, a long time clogged toilet and …
We arrive at the floor and I am dumbfounded…
****
Home at last.
If it were for me I would never go out, except to go for a ride or deliver something with the Magnum.
I open the service elevator door and put my Beretta and house keys on the coin tray. Then I crash on the couch, I repress a wince from the sudden burst of pain coming from my right side (the patched one), and I stretch my back.
I realize only then that the rookie is still in the elevator. I lean over the couch and tell him
– Are you waiting to cross the threshold in Prince Charming’s arms? –
He doesn’t even hear me. He seems to have petrified. He takes a few steps into the house and checks the place up. His mouth wide open.
I ignore him.
-Listen, you sleep on the couch until I find you a place. On a second thought, there is a sofa bed in the study, maybe it’s better if you stay in there. Feel free to use the computer that’s in it, after all I don’t even know how to use it, but you seem to know what you’re doing.-
I turn on the tv while he’s still there, frozen in the middle of the living room looking around himself.
****
I think five minutes have passed since we entered the house and I haven’t even uttered a single syllable in spite of the fact that Tears was talking to me. I must have just hit my new personal best.
The house is nothing short of huge.
It’s made from an old weaving department, so it’s a massive loft. A whole side of the house is occupied by the windows overlooking the street. There are five or six arched windows, each of a two meter span. They’re the firm kind ones, with an iron frame and many fixed small glass squares. The air circulation is controlled by a huge fan placed over the central apartment window. From the outside you can’t see anything, the windows are all tattered and yellowed by time, but inside everything is well kept and clean.
The floor is all in wood, except for the kitchen area where the flooring is in slate stone. There is an American stile open-plan kitchen, with a low counter to separate it from the living room.
Tears is washed up on a leather sofa, the coffee table in front of him is made out of two truck tires topped with a round glass. The living room cabinet is in modern style, black and shiny. There is a 42-inch plasma TV over it and below a Playstation, a satellite system and God’s own stereo.
The kitchen is white and black, in perfect order. Eye level oven, microwave, double door refrigerator, new and well cared for appliances of various kinds all around…
I finally speak.
-How on Earth can you afford for all this? The Confederation pay sucks! –
– Well kiddo, I’ve always had two jobs, the Confederation underpays its allies, but not its mercenaries.- he grins – Have you any idea of how much they give me for every Refugee I take care of? –
– No, they give me a hundred euros for each one of them…-
– Add a zero to that, and you have my parcel, only if it is an easy job of course-
I freak out.- So tonight you we’ve made six thousand euros!? –
– Exactly –
I’d better become gay and marry him.
He gets up, goes to the refrigerator and takes a beer, while he’s speaking to me – Ok, so let’s clarify a couple of rules – he opens beer with his teeth, and just the thought of it makes my premolars hurt – I don’t mind mess too much, but I can’t stand the dirt, so you clean up whatever you get dirty, okay? –
I nod. It seems more than fair to me.
– Then, when I wake up I want total silence. Otherwise I get a headache and I’m pissed off all day.-
– Did anybody get on your wrong side when you woke up today? –
He drinks. – No, today I am peaceful –
Great.
-As I said before you can stay in the studio – He goes to a sort of antechamber and I follow him. He points to the first door on the right and opens it.
It’s a room that could easily fit half of my apartment. Wooden floors, a huge arched window just like the ones in the living room, but this has a side that opens like a book, so no fans. There is a great desk with a computer that is worth more than any good I possess in this world and the other one.
-This is the study – he says -That’s the sofa bed, you sleep there, here is the computer which is hooked to the Confederation line, they told me you can speak directly to Shelv through it, but I am not able to use it so feel free to do what you want with it.-
I wonder how he knows what that computer does if he doesn’t know how to use it and, above all, why does he have it if he doesn’t know how to use it, but I follow him in silence as he shows me the rest of the apartment.
He exits and I follow him
-Here halfway down the hall there is the john. There’s only one of them, so don’t spend hours in it putting your makeup on, ok? –
I don’t comment to that one.
There are still two doors. He points to one of them – And this is my room, where you don’t enter without being previously authorized. Is everything clear? The house is all here.-
– And the room next to yours? – I already have my hand on the doorknob, but it’s locked.
– It’s the closet.- And he goes back to the living room. I follow him.
He comes to a halt and gives me an incisive look.- Now I have a couple of questions.-
I nod
– Be concise now.- and he lists on his fingers – Do you like pizza? –
– Yes –
-Chinese? –
– Sure –
-Kebab? You didn’t eat it earlier –
– Oh I eat it all right, it’s just that I was sick from all that_-
He raises his hand – Concise – he repeats. He then continues -You’re straight? –
– Well yes! – What kind of a question was that?
– You never know… It’s better to take precautions, I need to know if I can walk around in my underwear without risking…- I get a nervous eyebrow tic, while he continues. – What kind of music do you listen to? –
I give it a thought – A little bit of everything… –
– “A little bit of everything” is not an answer. Even those who listen to everything barfing out from Radio Italia say the same thing.-
– Hum, ok, I prevalently listen to dance and pop music, all kinds of rock, from Led Zeppelin to alternative rock and ah! I love Electropop. A little bit of metal, like the Iron Maidens – I see his face lighting up -or the Blind Guardians…- he then interrupts me.
-Great! – He’s happy, and I also think amazed by the fact that I know about all of those groups. The thing is that, yes, I’ve been here for just a couple of months, but I also had internet access at the castle, back with the Samirien… – One last thing. Supposing that you’ll be able to pick up a chick, I don’t want to have to talk to her the morning after, so I will ignore her, and she must be out of here by noon, copy that? –
-Yes… –
Supposing that?
I sigh, he throws himself back on the couch and turns on the TV. I take one last look around me and go to the study, which will be my new room.
And so I ended up living with Tears Eirdar.
I shut the door behind me and I seriously think that I should get myself a new myth.