 
### ExLibris: excluded from social networks

### By Alex A. Lidd

### Copyright 2014 Alex A. Lidd

### Smashwords Edition

### Prologue

Greetings! My name is Simon Parker and I live in New-York! I was born and raised in this city and until recently never travelled outside of it. To me New-York is something more than just buildings, which make it up, or the people living there. It is an organism within which every single cell – an inhabitant interacts with other similar cells, this interaction being at once both a method and a purpose, trying to find for himself or herself a place in the sun, inadvertently making this serve as the heartbeat of the entire city. It is a method because communication allows us to express our desires, requests to and expectations of other people. It is a purpose because communication is a basic and primary need of all humans. Every day we need somebody to talk to, to exchange thoughts, to express and share our opinions, and it is so pleasant when that somebody proves to be a kind red spirit, a friend. But spiritual liaison does not necessary require geographical proximity. Sometimes our friends are too far from us to keep us company.

The progress of humanity in that respect zips along alright. At first people send each other letters, spending weeks or even months waiting for an answer to come. More than one hundred years ago the invention of Alexander Bell – the telephone – allowed people to instantly share thoughts over a distance. This was a fantastic break, but it wasn't the end. At the beginning of the XXI century, with social networking websites becoming part of our lives, we learned not only to communicate over a distance, but also to express ourselves and even to be friends. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have entered our lives one and forever and became habitual. Can we image the modern world without them?

I have a lot to say on that matter to those who might think this question is purely rhetorical because I myself was excluded from social media and despite all that had become the most popular person there. Sounds strange?

Well...?

### Chapter I

### *****

"Wait, aren't you that hacker that everybody is after?" a thin guy who was wearing a white singlet, which did little to hide tattoos on his arms and neck, asked me with a mischievous grin."Though what with your being here, they've already caught you!"

I was at a place that was anything but common for a seventeen-year-old guy who was living a fairly commonplace life in New York only a week before, – a cell at the San Diego pre-trial detention facility, CA. Although it wasn't all that bad compared with the stereotype which had been living inside my head before I was given a chance to experience it all first-hand. My imagination had been offering a picture of a big packed room. And, of course, by "packed" I meant full of criminals. But, as it was, I had only one cellmate, Ben. He had been eyeing me steadily for a solid hour, lying on a bed with his right hand behind his head. Honestly, I also gazed at him, examining his tattoos, because we were just opposite each other and there wasn't much else to look at.

The cell also didn't quite come up to my expectations as to its size: it was actually small. Three red brick walls formed a space filled with two iron beds, which looked (and felt) like benches, an iron table with a pair of chairs and the toilet. In the back wall, just under the ceiling, was a window, so small in size that it resembled a medieval castle's loophole.

Our "room" was central in the line of cells. Ben intermittently communicated with the inmates, putting his head through the metal bars and turning it in different directions as if he wasn't able to hear something without seeing who he was talking to. By the way, we had the best view in the whole cell block, because through the bars we were able to contemplate the long straight white corridor, leading to the big metal door. And it was surely more enjoyable then the gloomy walls which were the only sight for the inmates in the cells on both sides of us. And we were also aware of anyone getting in or out of the block through that only door connecting the cells with the other parts of the building.

I wasn't in the least surprised that Ben finally remembered me. For some time, and long enough it was, his mimicry evidenced concentration, which was the consequence of intensive brainwork while searching for the answer "Where did I see this guy before?" And, in the end, inspiration graced his mind with its presence as a reward for his tenacity and, with a gesture of triumph, he exclaimed "But sure thing!", his intonation being somewhat similar to the one with which Archimedes once proclaimed his famous "Eureka", as he sat up, demanding confirmation of his guess from me.

I didn't answer him. Partly because I had seen too many movies in which a cellmate was supposed to be a whistler, and Ben did not look like a trustworthy person at all, but mainly because I didn't feel like sharing my story with anyone at all. Or, at least, with somebody wearing a singlet with traces of dirt from yesterday's party – he was detained for disrupting public order the night before.

Honestly speaking, I personally hadn't had enough time to properly size up what had happened to me in the last few days. One thing only did I know for sure – I had changed. And this change was not external, – my countenance remained what it used to be, so to speak, – I was a tall dark-haired guy with a sporty body and, as was claimed by far too many, very expressive eyes. One minor novelty was that I had changed my hairstyle to a short one; another was that easily detectable traces of sunburn had surfaced on my customarily pale skin – the consequence of having been exposed to the hot Californian sun for several days in a row. The crucial changes were basically the ones that had taken place inside my mind and soul and affected primarily my perception of myself and my attitude to people around me.

My silence was interpreted by Ben as teasing.

"Yeah! You are that guy!" He appeared to be overcome with emotions. A second later, hearing the scratching noise of a key turning in a keyhole (which could mean only one thing: that a policeman was unlocking the metal door at the end of the corridor), Ben cast a glance at me, grinned and jumped up. When he reached the bars, our unexpected visitor was standing some thirty feet away from him.

My cellmate yielded "Officer, give me my smartphone back, I want to make a photo!"

"Shut up!" The policeman answered with a lapse of several seconds, as he was going through a bunch of keys, obviously searching for the one with which he would be able to unlock the cell he needed.

"Get me back the smartphone that was taken away when I was arrested! I want to make a photo; or nobody will believe that I saw this dude!" Ben went on yelling, casting eyes on me again and again. But the policeman totally ignored him and continued to do his thing that had brought him into the cell block. He got somebody responding to the name Campbell out of his corner, which was evidenced by the unlocking clang of the barred door and the loud order "Campbell, for interrogation!"

"I have the right to make a phone call!"

Trying to catch the policeman's attention, Ben squeezed his head through the metal bars, turning it to the left where the Campbell's cell was. "Screw it! Give me the right to use Instagram instead!"

"I'll give you the right to get a closer acquaintance with my cudgel if you don't shut up!" the policeman said coolly as he passed him, leading the handcuffed Campbell, who proved to be a corpulent man who seemed to be serenely indifferent to the surrounding world. There weren't any traces in the policeman's voices showing his inclination to humour, and a black cudgel of an impressive size was hanging from his belt. So Ben decided against checking whether the officer was as good as his word and returned to his bench.

The policeman and Campbell disappeared behind the door at the end of the corridor.

"Well, you have been up to making so much noise!"My cellmate addressed me, obviously intending this to be a conversation starter.

"Yeah, and you are making too much noise now!" I said, half-turning away, showing that I had no intention of chatting with him.

At that moment the door at the end of the corridor opened again, and a second later the already familiar policeman stepped into the block, accompanied by a grey-haired man wearing a black suit and holding a leather bag of the same color. The man looked very confident, giving the impression of a person in charge. The policeman muttered something indecipherable to him and pointed at me. They came up to the cell and the man addressed me "Are you Simon Parker?"

"Actually, I am...," I answered. "And who are you?"

"I am your attorney Richard Johnson." He paused as if pondering over something. "I was hired by your parents, and we have a lot to discuss."

Matter of fact, despite my young age, that was the second time I found myself in need of legal assistance, but the first impression this attorney made was rather positive. Although the first attorney in my life I met not in the pre-trial center – I was free then, and that fact maybe made the comparison of impressions somewhat inadequate.

The policeman swung the barred door open. I got up and left the cell. The officer stopped me and stretched his hand to the handcuffs hanging from his belt.

"That is not necessary," Mr. Jonson arrested his movement.

"According to the instruction, I have to...," the policeman put on the "nothing-personal-it-is-just-my-job" air.

"I will be responsible for that!" the lawyer interrupted him, his voice showing tangs of steel.

The policeman hesitated for a second, while Mr. Johnson was eyeing him, and then gave up. "Well, OK".

"Let's go!" Mr. Jonson said, motioning towards the door, leading me out of the cell block.

The policeman took me and Mr. Johnson to the spacious room with blue walls, which was located in another part of the building. A wooden table and two chairs were all the furniture there. It reminded me of the interrogation room that I was inside some time before, except one detail. There was no giant one-way mirror covering one of the walls. And it seemed pretty logical because conversations with one's defense counsel aren't intended for any ears that have no business hearing them. The same could not be said about interrogations. As we sat down, I heard the lock cling. The attorney put his black bag on the table and got some papers out of it, instantly spreading those before him in designated order. Among them was a thick folder.

"Mr. Parker, first of all, I want to say that your parents are very concerned about your situation, especially your mother, she is really worried about you. You can pass anything you'd like to tell them through me. The second thing, I want to assure you that I will do everything I can to help. But it won't be possible, unless you first help me. You have to tell me the truth about what happened. And you must understand that I am the only person, except your parents, whom you can trust," Mr. Johnson told me in a confident and calm voice, looking straight into my eyes. "So, tell me what happened to you."

But I was still unsure whether I was going to tell him something or not – it was all way too complicated.

"Oh, that's a very long story, I do not even know where to begin," I said, looking at him the same way as he was looking at me. I was never afraid to look someone straight into the eyes, so I wasn't afraid of doing this at that moment. Sometimes eyes tell you much more than words.

"Begin with the moment which you consider critical in your actions and please do not omit any smallest detail. I need to know everything – literally everything – especially where, when and with whom you were. Any trifle can become crucial in our line of defense in court."

"You know, a lot of people are involved in my story and they must not be held responsible for my actions," I paused and added. "Even for the sake of protecting me!"

"Mister Parker, I got your point. If you want to protect your friends from the negative consequences of their acquaintance with you, then rest assured, they are under no threat. I'll keep everything you tell me confidential, unless you give me your permission to do otherwise." The lawyer took one paper out of the thick folder. "These are the names that I learnt from the case materials: Mandy Turner, Henry Hall, Clark Atwood, Alberta, Sean and Laura Martin, Samantha Collins, Ryan and Donovan Roberts, Joshua Miller and some others. All of these people were interrogated and qualified as witnesses in the case. But this list is not exhaustive, and new names maybe added. Moreover, the procedural capacity of some persons can be changed, if CCIA agents happen to find out something new. And be sure, they do not tire of looking for something new. So, if someone or something remains unknown for me, and they are the first to learn about it, I won't be able to help either you, or your friends for that matter. You should tell me about every aspect of your relationships and meetings with the said people and every other person that may have been involved in your story, but still remains unknown to special agents. And then we will together decide what should be deemed as pertinent to the case and what should not."

Honestly speaking, Mr. Johnson totally got my point, he obviously realized that I was very concerned about the future of the people who didn't abandon me in spite of the danger and still tried to help.

"I am on your side and if you want to protect your friends, I will help you, but I need to know the whole truth first. And, mind you, something that might seem unimportant to a lay person, well, in the world of jurisprudence this inconsequential something could literally turn the tide. Even your thoughts, incentives and attitude towards your own actions and the actions of other people now constitute mens rea – an element of criminal intent. Friends who had helped you with something might be treated by the investigation as mere witnesses, or they might be qualified as accomplices. So, it all depends on you... whether you allow me to understand the circumstances of the case or not. Help me and I help you."

I listened to him with utmost attention and carefully analyzed every sentence he said. His words, coupled with his intonation and the manner of conduct betrayed him as a remarkable orator. Moreover, in his eyes I saw a passion shine, that passion one encounters in professionals who always bring matters to the end. I thought that he was just the man whom I wanted to see as my lawyer, he was very convincing. And it seemed to me that this trait was crucial in his job. Besides, he wasn't wearing a dirty singlet.

So, I began my story.

### *****

A mere week ago I lived a pretty ordinary, routine life of a young guy had it not been for two circumstances. I was a hacker in the past and, as result, I was prohibited from doing staff that has conquered modern generation. A court decision prohibited me from using any electronic device more complex than a calculator. That meant that the World Wide Web which had penetrated and established itself in every household, was off the limits for me. To be more precise, according to the verdict, I wasn't able to use any device which operated on a processor. That prohibition included a computer, a tablet, a smartphone and even an ordinary cell phone. It made my life to certain degree similar to the lives of my parents when they were my age. I was particularly prohibited using social media. For long-distance communication I could only use the good old telephone (the helpful invention of Alexander Bell).

The opinion of the judge was that any electronic device connected to the Internet pose a potential threat to the society when in my hands, but at the same time my mingling with other citizens was quite admissible on certain conditions. The first condition was deprivation of any opportunity to get connected to the Internet, because the World Wide Web was where my hacker's skills had found their fulfillment. And the second one was my obligation to do community service. The penalty for what I'd done might have been much more severe had I not been a minor.

### Chapter II

### *****

"Mr. Parker, I have taken time to analyse your first case. As far as I know, that was when you hacked the web page of some company and the Judge considered non-custodial punishment to be sufficient for your correction. And you still did not complete it, which could result in certain complications for our current situation. But we will explore possible solutions later. Now I need to understand whether there was any connection between your actions which got you into trouble for the second time here in San Diego and that criminal record you already had?" the lawyer explained.

"I think that court decision played the key role," I answered. "Mr. Johnson, you know, it dramatically changed my life. And even all participants of the first case smoothly flowed into the second one."

"OK. Then I need to hear your version of the events which brought you before trial the first time and how they influenced your later actions." Mr. Johnson was really prepared to handle the whole of my complicated story. "Tell me about the circumstances which resulted in you being prohibited to use electronic devices."

"I will!" I nodded.

### *****

It all happened about a year ago, hardly more. In those days I divided all my free time between my friends and sitting in front of the computer, in most cases I combined those. I was very keen on modern technologies and wanted to understand how the symbiosis of soft and hard could function more efficiently. The acquired knowledge enabled me to move further and become something more than an ordinary user – so I became one of those who are usually referred to as "hackers". I didn't use my skills to gain material benefits – money were never involved. I was doing this for the sake of accepting and overcoming challenges, for the sake of accomplishing something impossible, for the sake of standing for my convictions. And I discovered a lot of like-minded people – so we formed a team and called it Skynet. We shared the same interests, and I really enjoyed spending time planning next hacking attacks. We organized a special locked chat room for that purpose on which we were protected by a variety of proxy servers and other security measures.

All of us there had our identities hidden behind nicknames. My nickname on the chat room was "Connor". The other members of the team called themselves Spidy79, Alexa, Eggplant and Mole. I considered them as my friends even though I didn't even know their real names, except for one guy – Joshua Miller (aka Eggplant) who lived in New York, and that fact had played its role in bringing us to real-life meet. As for the others, Spidy79 was from somewhere in China, Alexa was from Chicago and Mole from Los Angeles. Sometimes while conversing about breaking the security system of a certain program or web page we were despite ourselves compelled to share some personal details about ourselves. I knew, for example, who in our team preferred fizzy drinks to coffee to keep his eyes open and who was twenty something years old, but still living in his mum's basement.

Using nicknames was a kind of safety precaution in our case, but it conferred on our communication that lost atmosphere of the "old-days" Internet" when absolutely all users operated under chosen names and one's virtual identity was firmly independent from one's real identity. In those times an administrator of a forum or a chat room who possessed the authority to ban any participants of that online community in real life could be an eleven-year-old boy who was several times younger than the other members of that discussion platform. I mean, on the old school Internet everybody was trying to prove their worth independently of their social status in real life.

Nowadays, the abolition of anonymity, which was brought about by social networking sites and facilitated the coming-out of members on chat rooms and forums, prompted the merger of one's virtual and real-life identities. Everybody could go and find you on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and realise who you really are. And that information could also prove to be unexpectedly exhaustive (going as far as to include your food preferences, let alone the food preferences of your family members, and so forth).

People's choice of friends in the old-day Internet was based on some interest, and it was of absolutely no significance that all your virtual buddies lived in other cities and even their ages and social status didn't matter. In modern times people who are friends on the Internet are the same people who are friends in real life. I mean, social networking sites simply transferred real people with whom you communicate in real life into the cyberspace, and they are usually your peers from social perspective – same age, same region, same school, college or job. And the old-day atmosphere of Internet communication survived only on numerous forums and chat rooms where people's identities are still hidden under nicknames.

Our chat room was one of them. Although each member of Skynet had an "official" identity on social networking accounts, it didn't change my point. You know, as soon as I saw on my monitor screen "Connor is online", I became a hacker, who was recognized by freaky hacker's attacks. Hardly anybody on the chat room knew who Simon Parker really was, because they didn't know about my Facebook profile, nor what I do in my free time, because they hadn't seen my photos on Instagram, nor did they know my opinion about this and that, because they didn't read my Twitter account. But they knew Connor who was very keen on hacking and that was as much as they needed for our communication, because they shared that passion of mine.

Our actions were illegal and we were aware of it. And we had duly taken all necessary measures to protect ourselves. Moreover, we knew that as long as there was no money involved, there was no serious threat for us in it.

All went its course, until one fine Saturday in July. I woke up at noon or even later that day, as I always did when I didn't have to go anywhere in the morning. The daytime sleep was a kind of compensation for sleepless nights, what with my going to bed at 5 am after spending the night chatting.

But, honestly speaking, I didn't feel like I'd have enough rest. I didn't want to get out of bed and was lying there, figuring out that in order to feel like a human being again, and not like a broken robot, I needed a shower and a cup of coffee. The drawn curtains hardly let any sunshine into the room. The only tiny gap between them through which rays of light dispersed the twilight inside evidenced that that was a very sunny day. That thin bright strip inspired me to make an effort and pull myself together.

On my way to the bathroom I pushed the power button on the computer not wishing to waste a single second waiting for the operational system to load when I finally come back and install myself at the table. And by the time when I returned into the room, holding a cup of coffee, my favorite desktop wallpaper had already appeared on the monitor, meaning that my computer was waiting for me. I mean for the ordinary 'me' – I didn't intend to hack anything, because that was what I had done on the previous night. I only wanted to check the news on Facebook, find out whether somebody had "liked" my photos, left a comment under them or sent me a message.

Placing the cup near the keyboard, I perched myself on a comfortable rotating chair. The rapid movements of my fingers allowed me to enter my password on Facebook page within one second, even despite my obsession with long and complex combination of letters and numbers. I instantly saw a new message from Joshua, the only member of Skynet who was also my friend on Facebook. He was online at that moment too.

"Hello, Simon!" was the text of that message. "What are your plans for today?"

"Hi, Joshua!" I typed and sent the answer. "Is this a proposal?"

"Of course, it is. Matter of fact, I have two proposals for you. The first is let's hang out together and the second – we need to discuss something."

"My answer is: OK - to the first and "you gotta be a bit more specific" – to the second."

"This is not a place to speak about it."

I figured out that he was talking about hacking something, but it was very weird because we never spoke about it on social networking sites – that would be too dangerous. So I was confused and even thought that Joshua was either drunk or had been caught by the police. But he was my best friend and I really trusted him.

"I don't understand you. I think we should go to Bed," I typed. "Bed" was our code word for the chat room, because we spent nights on end there, and it was just the place where we developed plans "to put to sleep" targets of our attacks.

"I want to discuss it with you in person. So, at my place, at 4 – I am waiting for you."

"OK," I typed the answer, but I was in no hurry to get there. I spent a few more hours browsing Facebook, looking through updates on my friends' pages,"liking" this or that, sending and receiving messages. It was all so usual and so routine for me. Little did I know that social networking sites, as well as the Internet as such, would very soon be off-limits for me.

When I was at last ready to go, I was far from being bothered by the question "What am I going to wear?" and quickly put on jeans and a T-shirt – my usual outfit in fact. I didn't want to carry a bag, which meant that the pockets of my jeans were considerably bulged – what with my smartphone, iPod, some change and the keys inside. The journey from Manhattan, where I lived, to Queens, where my friend lived, usually took about an hour. But I had my mp3 player with meand it contained gigabytes of my favorite music uploaded, which would have probably sufficed me for months and months of listening without interruption, so I wasn't supposed to be bored.

Once inside the elevator, I put on my ear-phones and from that moment on I plunged into the world of rhythms. As I stepped out of the building, I collided with a flock of pigeons who, frightened by my sudden appearance, scattered in different directions. I didn't pay much attention to that at the time – there was nothing in the whole world except me and the music.

The bus stop was a few blocks away. From there I could get to any part of Queens that I needed. Several minutes of waiting and I was on a bus, taking the empty seat near the window. The bus moved off, and a variety of panoramas of New York came and went before my eyes through the big glass window in rapid succession. But I was oblivious of them and only noticed the succession of songs which nobody on the bus was aware of except myself. Just as I expected, the travel time flew way too quickly.

I got off the bus and found myself in a neighborhood that was totally different from the place where I lived – that is, on a long street of small private houses. They all looked just the same. But in spite of the absence of skyscrapers, this was still New York. Two minutes later I was facing the entrance door of a double storey building which was covered with white siding. Instead of pushing the door buzzer, I took out my smartphone and gave Joshua a call. I didn't want to bother his mom with whom he lived.

"Helloooo, Simon!"Joshua's voice was shattering.

"I am here. Let me in".

"OK!"

A minute later the entrance door opened and my friend appeared, all smiling. That tall muscular guy was always in a fine mood and so relaxed that it felt like he was in a state of constant partying. Even when home with mother, he always acted as if he had never heard of rules. When he spoke, it was hard to understand whether he was serious or joking; when sitting on a chair, he necessarily leaned back on it and balancing, as if to explore the boundary of falling; when he landed on a couch, he instantly spread on it, widely placing his arms as if wishing to mark his territory. This laid-back manner conferred on him a special quality of confidence and charm.

"Come in, bro!" said he hospitably, stretching his hand which I shook as soon as I entered the house.

We went into the basement – the place where Joshua lived and which he referred to as "my castle". It looked like an ordinary young bachelor's den, and only three small rectangular windows squeezed in just under the ceiling reminded that this was the basement of the house after all. In addition to the typical stuff any room is supposed to contain – a bed, a chair, a table with a PC on it (sided with an oblong football), – slightly aside stood a refrigerator which, in Joshua case, was more of an attribute to certain independence than a device serving to preserve food's freshness. There was virtually nothing inside except beer. Also, instead of a wardrobe he used metal racks, but that really seemed to be more of a designer's ruse.

"My home is your home!" the dude said, then sat on the bed and stretched his right hand indicating a chair for me. For some reason it stood not in front of the table, but near the door, right opposite the place where Joshua had landed. "Take a seat!"

"What is it you want to talk about?" I asked as soon as I did as he proposed. I had been wondering about that since I read his puzzling message on Facebook.

"Shan't we start with some beer?!" Joshua took a quick look at the refrigerator standing near the table right under the central window.

"No, thanks."

"Well, up to you, mate!" the guy shrugged his shoulders and opened the fridge, taking out a can of beer and instantly opening it so abruptly that it erupted with falling on the floor froth."I don't have milk."

"Maybe your mum does," I conjectured.

Joshua smiled and returned to his seat, holding the beer, taking a sip now and then.

"So, I gotta fantastic idea how to make some cash!" A brief pause followed. Then he spoke again: "I could do it all by myself, but I am no greedy ass and I am ready to share it with you."

"Well, that sounds pretty suspicious, maybe you should tell me the details." It was becoming obvious that Joshua, like any hacker at some point in his life, was facing amoral dilemma – either to use his skills for making money or to opt for keeping things simple.

"In short, one dude found me, he represents a big company, that man.... And he is ready to pay a vast amount of bucks for a bit of help with receiving certain secret information out of the competing company's system," my friend gabbled away. "He is really dying to get that data."

"Now, mate, there is something I do not understand here!" I said, seeing that my guess proved to be a right one. "When did you begin to respond to such offers? I thought, we decided that money should not be involved in whatever Skynet do. Do you understand that doing things for money could ruin everything?"

"I do, but this offer came from a very reliable person. I've done some checking on him. He has already ordered similar operations from other guys, and everything was fine as soon as the job was done," Joshua said. "And it's not going to involve Skynet, so it won't affect the reputation of the team. It is about me and you only – two independent hackers, see!"

"I am not talking about that!" I interrupted him."The reliability of that dude, the reputation of Skynet – all that is of little importance. Since when did you begin to care about hacking for money?"

"Come on!" Joshua got up.

He made several steps in the direction of the table, leaving the can, – which, judging by the sound, still had some beer left – on it. Then Joshua took a ball from the table and instantly passed it onto me – I caught.

"It doesn't matter what we are doing this for, money or for the sake of idea. Hacking is illegal for whatever reason you do it, so if the attitude of the society to these things is the same, why should give a damn about it? And doing the former will allow us to get something more out of it than just the satisfaction of achievement."

"Yeah, you are right, man! We can make some cash that way," I said and threw the ball almost directly into his hands. "But you are talking about the law, and what about principles? Don't you think that the state and the society are not one and the same thing? Well, in my book there is a very big difference between hacking the web resource of some company's market rivals in this company's interests and doing stuff that you choose to do because of your convictions about social justice."

"Bro, I will tell you no lies," Joshua again passed the ball to me. "I am twenty three, I haven't gone to college and I am living in my mum's basement. You know, I like my life, but all of it, you know, is not quite what I dreamt of years ago. I need money to finally become independent, and maybe this job is my chance to change everything – the point from which I could start it with a clean slate. There is a hundred thousand bucks at stake; that is very good money. And, honestly, all airs aside, I need your help. "

"And that is where you want to begin it all?" I said, getting up myself and passing the ball to him. "Sorry, man, but I don't want to be mixed up in all this."

"So, you are not going to help me," he muttered.

"Bro, you don't need my help" I said. "I have known you for a long time and I am pretty confident that you will find your place in the sun. But not in a way like this!"

"You know, Simon," Joshua said and, instead of passing the ball to me, put it back on the table, "It is all very nice your believing in me and all that, but I've decided to grow up."

"That's just what I'm talking about. At least, give it a rethink."

I looked him in the eyes and understood that he had already made the decision. "Whether you will take my advice or not, keep me in the know. There is no point in warning you that money always changes the game, I guess."

"OK, I'll think about your advice. After all, screw it! We need to relax, let's get out to some cool place!"

"That's my boy!" I smiled. "Where shall we go?"

"There is one possible option," Joshua said, turning to the computer, and moving the mouse to exit the sleeping mode. He then opened his Facebook page.

"I've seen one dude from the block here, who's inviting people to come over today; he's promising a bunch of hot chicks and a swimming pool full of booze."

"Sounds good. But...do you know him?" I asked.

"Well he is my friend on Facebook, which means that we are at least not 100% strangers," he laughed. "Here we go... Oh, it's really not far from here...party with Glutton!"

"What?" I asked.

"Glutton," he repeated. "Sounds kind strange, I know, so let's find out what it means."

"Right!"I smiled.

Joshua took a six beer pack ring out of the fridge. One ring was already empty, because he had finished that one just a few minutes ago.

"You seem to have said something about the swimming pool full of alcohol!" I smiled.

"Maybe Glutton has already finished it all!" he laughed.

We climbed upstairs to the ground floor of the house.

"Mum, I'm off for a walk," the guy yelled, coming up to the staircase, directing the efforts of his vocal chords somewhere to the second floor. "I will be late."

"OK!" I heard his mum's voice coming from above. Don't fuddle yourself then!"

"And how about 'Don't forget to take out the garbage'?" I joked. "Or, have you cleaned your room?"

"Screw you, Simon!" he pushed me out of the house.

Ten minutes' walk, during which time Joshua had done away with one more can of beer, and we spotted a giant inflatable man towering over the roofs of double storey houses. He was wearing a jeans overalls and holding a big doughnut.

"Glutton!" we exclaimed almost in chorus. With a beacon like this it would have been impossible to fail to find the location where the party was held.

Glutton had obviously been stolen from the roof of a snack bar where it had served as an advertising aid and moved onto the lawn of the house (he was tied to the towing hook of the car which was parked right there on the lawn), which was hosting the fun that day. And that huge figure was ideally fitted for being the symbol of that fun. Periodical fluctuation of that inflatable man downwards, upwards and in different directions evidenced from apart that arriving to the party guests were striving to took a picture of themselves with him. And each photographer tried to make something of an original photo at that.

Seldom did the fat figure return to its natural in-free-air position. At one of such moments when myself and Joshua were forty feet away from the lawn, I addressed my friend: "Hey, how about a selfie with that dude behind?"

"You are the boss!" Joshua acquiesced.

We span around, turning our backs to the inflatable man, took out our smartphones and, with broad smiles across our faces, took pictures, with Glutton caught in the background of the shot.

"I got nice photos," my friend announced joyfully, shielding the screen of his smartphone with his palm to protect it from sun rays, staring at it intently.

"Me too!" I echoed his statement, launching an Instagram application on my smartphone. "I am going to share it."

"I totally agree with you... under hashtag #Glutton," Joshua smiled.

"And that's all? I'll upload my photos under hashtags #Glutton, #party, #Queens, #symbol, #meet at the entrance... and add the location," I said, my fingers moving along the screen of my smartphone. "Maybe some friends of mine are not far from here now, I'll let them know that I am here."

We came to the entrance door which, quite surprisingly, proved to be locked, in spite of the crowd partying on the lawn, and Joshua touched the bell. A minute later the door swung open and a guy wearing an oversized red T-shirt and holding a plastic cup of the same colour appeared in the doorway. He sized us up with a slow and inspective gaze and adjusted the bandana on his neck, now looking slightly confused. It was obvious that he didn't recognise us and as far as he was the owner of the house, which meant also a party host, it was in his power to decide whether somebody could get in or not. At that moment I was ready to take back my words about friends in real life being the same as friends on Facebook.

"Helloooo, dude!" Joshua was clearly uncomfortable with the slow reaction of the guy and decided to jog his memory a bit – he spread his arms with a jolly "Here I am!" The combination of this address and gesture instantly brought the result.

"Oh, I didn't recognize you," the guy roared with laughter. "Come in!"

"Here is to introductions," Joshua said, entering the house and exchanging handshakes with the host. "This is Simon, my buddy!"

I went in right after him.

"Well, Hi, Simon!" the owner of the house looked at me and stretched his hand. "I'm Mike".

"Yeah, I know!" I shook it.

"I don't think I've ever met you before," Mike blinked slightly and added in a manner indicating that the answer was somehow of crucial importance, "Aren't you local?"

"He is local, man!"Joshua interrupted. "Listen, bro, where can I find a bathroom here, because I downed a beer several minutes ago."

"I see!" Mike gestured towards the remaining four cans of beer.

"Oh, yeah, that's my contribution!" Joshua handed them to the host. "But now my bladder is ready to blow up from pressure!? You don't need a thing like that happen in your house, do you?" My friend suddenly burst into laughter, showing that he was just joking, then stopped abruptly and supplied suddenly appeared severity on his face with the comment "Nobody needs it!"

"Yeah!" Mike moved my friend several feet away to a spot from which a better view of the house opened and gestured in the direction Joshua needed: "See that door?"

In the meantime, I looked around. The entrance to the rooms where I was standing was in the middle of a big hall filled with twenty something people. Practically all of those were concentrated near the billiard table which stood in the right corner of the room, right next to the exit into the backyard. On the right side, near the garage door bearing an inscription "Beer-pong is here!", was a small red couch with a giant plasma TV screen standing opposite it. Two guys were sitting on that couch, playing games on a play station. On the left side was a kitchen separated from the hall by an arch through a table covered with masses of alcohol bottles and red plastic cups was to be seen. It served as the second centre of attraction after the billiard table. The staircase leading to the first floor was illuminated by multicolored bulbs. The atmosphere of the party was attended with rhythmical music, which, however, wasn't loud, because it was coming from somewhere in the backyard which was separated from the hall by a glass door with a sigh "Pool is here!"

Since the only person I knew there – Joshua – had disappeared somewhere in the bathroom, I decided to while away the time by checking whether somebody had left comments under my new photos with Glutton on Instagram. There weren't any comments, but I spotted a new picture on Joshua's account – a bathroom selfie in the mirror, uploaded just a second before.

"I'm not even surprised!" I thought to myself and then decided to find out where the symbol of the party had come from. I searched after hashtag "#Glutton". The first portion of photos bearing this hashtag on Instagram had been recently uploaded by those present at the party. I even spotted some familiar faces – among them were two guys chilling on a couch and the host on whose personal account I found a video, 16 seconds long, telling the story of Glutton. I saw how several guys, one of whom was filming everything that was going on, and Mike braked sharply on the parking lot of some snack bar, where Glutton had soared before. Then, very swiftly and accompanying their actions with obscene jokes and laughs, they undid the rope by means of which it was tied to a special supporting construction and tied it to the towing hook of their car. After that they drove off chased by cafe staff who ran out spotting the theft.

"What are you looking at?" I heard Joshua's voice. He was holding two plastic cups in his hands.

"Take a look!" I showed him the video and we laughed together.

New people kept arriving at the party and soon the entire house and the backyard which accommodated a huge swimming pool and an improvised stage with a DJ were immersed into the atmosphere of fun and entertainment. In the meantime, the street was darkened, the music had become louder and it was now heard all over the place. Under the influence of alcohol the girls became naughty and boys lost all fear – people were dancing and kissing literally at every step. Now and again somebody climbed up onto some elevation or other and, raising their hands in the air, loudly proclaimed something like "The best party ever!!!", thus expressing, – and with instant echoing from other people, – their own feeling about what was happening there.

The billiard table lost universal attention, and the crowd that previously had being hanging around it, moved into the garage to play bear-pong instead. For me and Joshua that fact was very convenient because we had a long history of billiard opposition to each other and we could play as many games as we wanted to, without waiting for our turn. Joshua actively flirted with girls, using vulgar billiard phrases like "Do you want to hold my stick?" or "Would you like to kick balls around on the table with me?" But it was just... Joshua...

"That's what I want to do!" my friend said, aiming to bring the ball into a pocket.

"What do you mean?" I asked, unsure as to what he exactly meant. "Invent cheesy phrases? Playing billiards? "

"No, man" Joshua said and failed a shot. "I meant parties. I want to organize that shit! If I had a start-up capital, I would launch a night club. I've got a whole lot of ideas!"

"Well, draw up a business plan, find an investor and go ahead," I said, choosing the position for a shot. Then I delivered the ball into the pocket.

"You are the best business adviser I've ever seen!" Joshua laughed. "Where am I supposed to find an investor?! Nobody will give me money!"

"And you know why?" I said, making the next shot. "Because at first you need to take your ass out of the basement and do, undertake something! That's why businessmen are also called undertakers. Didn't you know that?" I grinned.

My second shot was also successful.

"I know where I should start!" my mate declared confidently, "I can get one hundred thousand dollars in just one night!"

"I don't like that idea!" I said, hit, but missed the pocket. "Damn! Your turn, bro. Joshua, I really think you shouldn't do what you are planning to!"

"Simon, maybe it is my chance!" he said, analyzing the positions of the cue balls on the table.

"I really hope you would change your mind!"

I turned aside from the game for a split second and glanced in the direction of the door where Mike was standing, welcoming a belated quest, who proved to be a stunningly gorgeous girl. She took up all my attention and from that moment on I was totally unable to think about anything else. All that had been bothering me (including Joshua) vanished into thin air, and it seemed like time slowed its pace. She greeted the party host and flitted inside the house so gracefully as if gravity had no power over her ideal body the perfection of which was highlighted by a short white slinky dress, contrasting with her skin of the same colour as brown sugar. A smile adorned her charming face and her dark straight hair flowed down onto her shoulders.

"Hey! Simon! Your turn. Simon? What are you looking at?" like some voice behind the screen in a movie Joshua's finally reached my mind. He came up to me and waved his palm before my eyes, but got no reaction from me (and I don't even know why!).

Then Joshua also glanced in the direction I was looking and saw the girl.

"What a babe, man! She is as hot as...," Joshua tried to express his feelings, but was interrupted by me woken up from trance.

"Hold it for a sec, bro," I said, giving him my billiard cue.

"What are you going to do?"

But his question remained unanswered, because I hastened to approach the girl of my dreams, afraid of losing sight of her. Several seconds later I appeared in front of her and practically blocked the way. She was bound to look at me and at that moment our eyes met for the first time. A spark definitely slipped between us.

"Hello! You look like a princess and I am going to spend the whole night persuading you that I am your Prince!" I spoke quickly and confidently. "My name is Simon!"

"Thanks for the compliment!" Her laughter was graceful, "but, honestly, I do have a boyfriend, if that is what you are worried about."

"It is your boyfriend who should be worried," I wasn't going to give up that easily. "After all, now you are standing next to me, and I'm not afraid of competition!"

"You are funny," she smile. "My name is Alberta!"

"Nice to meet you!" I said and stretched my hand. She took it, but instead of a handshake she received an unexpected kiss. Her skin was very soft. She was clearly embarrassed, but I didn't let her hand out of mine – I wasn't intended to lose her once I've found her.

"Let's go, I'll show you everything around," I said and led her into the heart of the party – the pool, because I thought it was a top place to get to know each other better.

"Hold on, I must wait for my friend," She tried to resist my pressure. "She is parking the car and will be here any minute."

"We will find her later!" I reassured her, still pulling her by the hand behind me. She surrendered and followed me.

"But you've got to promise that you won't live me alone here," Alberta asked."Because I don't know anybody here at the party, except my friend."

"OK. You won't believe me, but I understand you like no other," I smiled and, suddenly remembering Mike's question at the entrance, thought that Alberta and myself must have been the only people here who did not know anybody except one friend. "So, you aren't local, are you?"

"You mean from Queens?" she asked.

"Exactly" I nodded.

We went to the pool, which was in the backyard. In the twilight it looked like a giant rectangle filled with water (Mike proving to be a liar: alcohol was there only in the form of splashes out of glasses), on one side of which was an oblong semicircular ledge. This ledge seemed to me to be the calmest and most solitary place, like an island of peace in fact. It was at some distance from everything else, even though there were people hanging around and the music was very loud. As she was settling herself on one side of that "peninsula", I again noted the gracefulness of her movements and grew all the more convinced that she was the girl of my dreams. Her beautiful face, full lips and shining eyes were driving me crazy.

"No, I'm not. My grandmother lives here and I sometimes visit her," the girl finally supplied an answer to my question. On our way to the ledge any communication was out of question, because of the loud music and the people around who were moving in all directions."I live with my parents in Manhattan."

"So you came to see your Granny and ended up at the party?" I laughed.

"I know, this sounds weird, but it's totally different to what it may seem!" she protested. "See, my parents are very strict. And when I say "strict", I don't mean like all parents are supposed to be. It is the kind of strictness that verges on paranoia. They have a whole bunch of ridiculous rules and restrictions; I am not even allowed to hang out with my friends whenever I want to."

"Why so?" I asked and thought that probably our first conversation went on the wrong route. She was tired of her parents' control and it was probably better not to speak about it at a rare moment of them – when she was enjoying freedom. But, honestly speaking, it didn't matter much as long as I was able to look into Alberta's beautiful eyes.

"They assigned a schedule for me, which contains everything, that I should do in each minute" She answered. "School, homework, private French lessons and stuff like that. They consider anything that is outside of the schedule, like hanging out with friends, to be deplorable waste of time"

"Yeah, they are really strict and...kind of crazy, I say!" I smiled. "But I just don't get it what the point of all those restrictions is. I mean, is it supposed to lead you somewhere?"

"They think there is no other way to get into Berkley!" the girl answered, but I didn't see much enthusiasm in her eyes.

"A nice goal!"

"Yeah, but pitiful and inadequate ways of helping its accomplishment! I understand, they only want the best for me, but I just don't want to be separated from the rest of the world by the blind wall of their care. I mean isolated from other people, from my peers – I do not feel like I am part of it all and it is really sad!" she objected. "But Granny, she is totally different – she is cool. When I visit her, she always insists, not telling my parents, that I go out somewhere with friends. Today was no exception. Honestly, I was planning on going to another place with my friend, you know. I usually prefer night clubs or something to parties in backyards, but we saw Glutton while driving, and that fat guy attracted our attention. So we decided to pop in and see what is going on here. Then I met you."

"So, your grandmother and Glutton are reasons you are here," I smiled. "Remind me later to give your granny a kiss on the cheek for making our meeting possible!"

"OK, I will!" she laughed. "And what about you, are you from the neighborhood?"

"No, actually we have much in common again. I too live on Manhattan and I too know nobody here, except one friend, who is a local."

"So he brought you to this party?"

"Yeah, you could say that."

"So, don't forget to give him a kiss too," she laughed. "Because it is to him that you owe our meeting each other no less than to my Granny!"

"Logic suggests that you are the person who must kiss him," I objected, "I hope you are enjoying my company as much as I am enjoying yours and, if I am able to kiss the reason for your being here, so you must able to do the same with the reason of my coming to this party!"

"Maybe I prefer to kiss you instead," she leaned towards me if only just slightly, and these last words were almost whispered.

"I thought you have a boyfriend," I grinned.

"I said a boyfriend, not a husband!" she whispered into my ear, touching my cheek gently.

After that she seized my hand, got up abruptly, and exclaimed "Let's go dancing!"

I stood up and was just going to follow her, only to have our plans ruined by the noisy crowd advancing on us literally from all sides. We were cut off from the way out. It took me one second to analyse the situation and make a decision. I noticed that that crowd was carrying Mike above their heads, and he was resisting the obvious intention to dip him in the pool as a token of their "gratitude" for organising the party. The semicircular ledge where we were standing was an ideal place to realise their plan and nobody cared that it was occupied by us, by anybody for that matter.

The drunken crowd flew into a rage so badly that it turned into a giant organism that either absorbed or squashed anybody who happened to be on its way. And at the moment it was myself and Alberta that happened to be in their way. Trying to force our way through the throng was pointless because of its extreme density, as was trying to join them because we were on the edge of the pool, and that guaranteed that we were supposed to dip into the water, followed by Mike and anybody who would not keep their balance in this hustle. So the best option for us was to jump into the pool before we were forced to do so and swim away to a safe distance from the madding crowd.

Taking advantage of the fact that Alberta was still holding my hand, I drew her closer to me, hugged and, looking straight into her worried eyes, commanded: "We must jump into the pool!"

Seeing her confusion, I added: "If we don't do that ourselves, they'll force us!"

"But I am scared!" the girl hesitated.

"Trust me!" I said and, understanding that any delay was out of question, leaped into the pool, dragging the girl with me.

I keep Alberta inside my strong embrace. She was perfectly beautiful even under the water. I was looking at her and she was looking at me and this could have probably gone on forever, but we were going deeper and deeper. I was forced to release her in order for both of us to come out onto the surface. We did that and found ourselves fifteen feet away from the ledge where we had been several seconds before. When I was again able to breath, lifting my head above water, I instantly looked at the girl.

"Why did you do that?" Alberta was indignant.

"You would've never did it yourself!" I exclaimed and turn around to look what was going on there. Alberta also looked back.

At that moment the crowd occupied the ledge, with no empty space left there, and loudly counted down seconds before throwing Mike into the pool.

"Come on, let's swim in there," I suggested, pointing at the opposite edge of the pool, which was far enough from the counting crowd: "Seven...Six..."

"OK" she agreed.

Several seconds later I, putting my arm round Alberta's waist, lifted her out of water onto the pool nosing and jumped out myself. On the opposite side the crowd said "One!" and Mike was catapulted, like a rock star at a concert, almost to the very centre of the pool. He was followed by those who, whether intentionally or accidently, jumped after him.

"Thank you!" The girl said, watching that craziness.

I only smiled in response.

"But now I am all wet!" Alberta complained.

"Honestly, I like it" I said, staring at her. She was looking so sweet and defenseless.

"Mmm...your hair...," I saw little curves.

"What is wrong with that?"Alberta touched it as if fearing something really wrong.

"It's curly!" I said. Big long curly hair made her look even more fabulous, highlighting her fragile beauty.

"My hair is just got wet," the girl muttered. "I have naturally curly hair and have to straighten it."

"Why?" I was really surprised. "You look so lovely with that curly hair! Now looking at you, I realise that my first impression of you was wrong. You do not look like a princess, you ARE a Princess!"

"Oh, thank you," Alberta said. "I do it because my boyfriend likes straight hair."

I had only known her for a few minutes, which is usually not enough to begin to understand somebody, but this time it wasn't all about words. Honestly, it didn't really matter what we were talking about – her parents, her grandma, her curly hair or even her boyfriend. It was supposed to be awkward to speak about that during the first minutes after we met, but it wasn't. It was like experiencing emotions yourself and sharing them at the same time – so new and so familiar at once, and that could mean only one thing – we were drawn to each other.

"Your boyfriend understands nothing about your beauty!" I said and touched her cheek. "Berry, you are the most gorgeous girl I have ever seen, and you don't need to change a single damned thing!"

"Did just you call me "Berry?" she was surprised. "Nobody calls me that way except my parents."

"Now, there you are!!!" I heard a loud voice coming from behind, butting into our conversation, "I have been looking for you all over! Why didn't you wait for me till I'm done with the parking?"

I span around and saw a tall dark-haired girl in a close-fitting orange dress.

"Simon," Alberta said, getting to her feet. "This is my friend about whom I told you!"

"Hi! Don't blame Berry! It is all my fault! " I said rising. "Sorry for that!"

"Did you call her Ber..." the dark-haired girl stopped and carefully examined the two of us standing in front of her. She obviously noticed that we were soaking wet. "What happened?"

"A bit of a water adventure!" Alberta smiled and turned to her friend. "Have you got something in the car I could get changed into?"

"Yeah, I think so!" The girl in the orange dress answered it with such undisguised enthusiasm that her desire to discuss "a bit of a water adventure", as well as myself, became way too obvious.

"Simon," This time it was Berry who addressed me. "I will be back soon, I hope you won't disappear..."

"You can depend on it, I won't!" I said, moving closer to her and added, almost whispering into her ear. "And if you don't get back, I'll find you, be sure," These words could have sounded creepy under different circumstances, but at the moment they really didn't.

"OK!" she smiled and went away with her friend.

I thought that changing would be a good idea for me too, but, with no such opportunity, I opted for wringing my gear instead. I removed my T-shirt and began screwing water out of it. Suddenly a howl of sirens was heard and serially flashing red and blue reflections surfaced on the front side of the house. It was not hard to figure out that this was the police coming.

"Probably someone from among the neighbors wasn't invited to the party," some guy conjectured jokingly about the reason the cops were coming.

And it was at that moment everyone suddenly began to behave in a rather unexpected way. Practically everybody who was in the backyard, including Mike himself, rushed through fences of neighbors, fleeing from those who are expected to serve and protect. All at once I was growing pretty concerned with the situation. If the owner of the house was on the lam, there was nothing better left for his visitor than to follow suit. And I would have done so had it not been for me needing to find Alberta first. I didn't have her contacts, and that meant that our chances to meet again were minimal.

I went through the backyard into the house toward the people who were running in my direction. I had to force my way through because now and then I bumped into rushed fugitives. I was trying to find Berry actively looking around, but she wasn't there.

Inside the house I saw an even bigger mess than what was in the backyard. The entrance door was swung open and through I could see how several policemen detained some guy on the lawn. In spite the fact that people were hastily leaving the ground floor through the back door and the windows, the turmoil did not fall down, because from the first floor through the stair constantly arrived replenishment. Suddenly someone grabbed me by my shoulders from behind. I started, looked back and saw Joshua.

"Man, where is your T-shirt?" he yelled. "Screw it! later... let's get out of here through the backyard!"

"Hold on!" I objected. "I must first find Alberta!"

"Who?" Joshua was confused for a second but then his face cleared up almost instantly. "Ah, that girl! Where is she?"

"She must be at the roadside!" I answered rapidly.

"Bro, we can't go there, one drunken guy punched a cop in the face right there on the lawn. So everybody who was there has been either detained or are trying to escape!" He shouted, "And we'd better do a bunk too!"

"Man, I gotta check it out!" I uttered and ran to the entrance door. Joshua followed me yelling: "Shit! Dude, you are driving me crazy!"

On the lawn the cops were arresting anyone who happened to. The road from both sides was blocked by police cars. Red and blue flashes in the dark made everything look very strange, almost scary.

"See this?" my friend uttered. "She is not here, let's go!"

There was not much left to me but to acquiesce and run with him first into the backyard and then somewhere further away.

"Hey, you stop!!!" we heard somebody's loud voice coming from behind. This was probably a cop, addressing us, so we reacted by picking up pace.

Some thirty feet ahead of us a guy in a red sweatshirt was running. He appeared to know the road out of trouble, so we decided to follow him. Flying over the fence, we found ourselves in the backyard of a house on a parallel street. The owner of that house wasn't very happy about either the noisy party nearby or the considerable number of people escaping from the police raid. So the huge man, who was wearing a white gown that swung open, revealing boxer shorts and a vest of the same colour, was brandishing a baseball bat yelling: "Get out of my backyard!!!", trying to strike at least somebody.

The guy in the red sweatshirt almost collided with him, but somehow, demonstrating truly miraculous resourcefulness, managed to escape being struck by the bat and, having slipped by him, run to bypass the house from the right side. The man was so disappointed with this miss, that he started to follow that guy. For our maneuver we logically chose the left side of the home. Reaching a parallel street, we moved further until there were no more people around us, and we felt safe.

"Simon, I can't run...anymore...I need a break!" Joshua panted, then stopped and bent over, his hands on his knees. "I haven't done much running since school days...ugh. Give me a moment to recover breath..."

I stopped and put my hands on top of my head but said nothing.

"Man, are you all right?" my exhausted friend inquired.

"Alberta! I haven't got her number!" I answered and punched the palm of my left hand with my right hand fist.

"Bro, don't worry, there are plenty more fish in the sea!" Joshua came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and, barely resisting laughter, added, "Or you have turned into one of that type who dance with a chick and then text her "So what are we?"

"You are an asshole!" I grinned, and then added quietly. "You do not understand"

"What? She is that fatale?" Joshua asked, making a few more steps and sitting down on the curb. I sat down next to him.

"We will find her. She was at the party and it means that somebody had to invite her!" my friend tried to reassure me.

"She isn't local and she didn't know anybody at the party."

"And how did she end up in Queens?"

"She had come to visit her grandmother."

"So...what else do you know about her?" Joshua asked thoughtfully and added with a laugh, "Did she not leave you with a glass slipper of hers?"

"I only know her name... But I will find her!" I declared with confidence. "If need be, I will look through all girls with the name "Alberta" on Facebook. She may have posted a photo from the party on Instagram, I therefore will check every possible hashtag, beginning with #Glutton and finishing with #party. And also Twitter, she may have tweeted about it."

"Bro, it will take you a hundred years!" Joshua smiled. "Thousands of pages, photos and messages to check!!!"

"I hope you will help me," I eyed him intently.

"Sure thing, I will!" He said. "But we should get somebody else involved!"

"Only you and me can recognise her on a photo, so it doesn't make much sense to get somebody else involved."

"You are right," Joshua agreed. "Could you now answer my apparently untimely question?"

"What question?" I wondered.

"Where is your T-shirt?" he said with a smile on his face.

"Honestly, I don't even know...," I was puzzled. "I was trying to twist it and then probably dropped it somewhere in the turmoil..."

We both laughed.

"OK, let's go to my place, I'll give you something dry to put on," Joshua said and we walked slowly to his home.

"Do you happen to have a dry smartphone?" I joked, pulling my wet gadget out of my pocket. Despite being soaked, it was still working.

### Chapter III

As soon as we arrived at Joshua's place, we went down into the basement at once. He took a T-shirt and jeans from the rack and handed them to me: "Here you are..."

"Thanks, man!" I took the clothes. "Turn on the computer. We've got loads of work to do!"

"OK!" He said and pushed the power button. "The party must go on!"

It didn't take me all too long to put on what he gave me.

"Am I looking alright?" I beckoned his attention.

"Almost like me!" he laughed.

I sat down in front of the monitor, while Joshua took his tablet and settle himself on the bed.

"I will begin by browsing Facebook and you check Instagram and Twitter"

"OK, boss!"Joshua acquiesced.

In our hacking activities, we got used to working as a team, each with his own part to do, and, as far as the Internet was involved, finding Alberta became our next task.

I typed "Alberta" into the search box on Facebook and it crossed my mind that probably only one click separated me from the girl of my dreams. But as soon as I pushed the Enter key, it was not relief that filled me; rather it was the realisation of that the task was not going to be all that simple.

"Do you know how many girls with the name "Alberta" have their pages on Facebook?" I asked Joshua, staring at the monitor.

"And how many exactly?" he echoed my question several seconds later, his eyes still fixed on the tablet screen.

"Four thousand!" I said in a voice that was slightly louder than necessary.

My communication with Joshua would have definitely appeared rather strange to an outsider. It was as if we were separated by an Internet line – my answer also came with a delay of several seconds and we didn't even look at each other as we spoke. And that was also a habit of ours acquired while chatting online during our operations, such an "I-am-busy-doing-my-part-of-the-hacking-stuff" type of communication. Messages on the "Bed" were rare, short and usually contained jokes to laugh, problems to solve or facts to marvel at.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "Do I get it right that you are going to check all those profiles."

"I have no other choice but to do exactly that. I will keep doing that, until I recognise her on a profile photo," I answered.

Silence, broken only by the sound of mouse clicks, restored.

"I have so far checked all pictures hashtagged #Glutton, but haven't found her," Joshua uttered several minutes later.

"Try #partyindaQuins," I said. "And the like. And don't forget to search for similar things on Twitter..."

And once again we plunged into our work.

Several hours later I realised that it was already morning and we had spent all that time trying to find Alberta on social networking websites. We had got too carried away by the task we were dealing with to take heed of the time and, following our habit, had barely exchanged a few words with each other, aside from brief "reports" about the results of our search and sharing impressions of some funny photos or messages. Not a single one of those four thousand girls on Facebook with this name proved to be the one I was looking for. Browsing Instagram and Twitter, trying different hashtags was equally to no avail. I felt weary and upset realising that I would probably never see that girl again.

But I wasn't going to give up that easily.

"Simon, looks like you started going through the same pages over again?" Joshua said, coming up to me and laying the tablet on the table. "It's no use. Either she hasn't accounts on social networks or for some reason it was a wrong name that she gave you, or, at least, not the one under which she is registered there. And if the former option sounds way too fantastic, the latter... maybe "Alberta" is what her friends call her or, maybe granny, but her real name is different."

"No, that is her real name!" I interrupted the flow of Joshua's thoughts, tapping the keyboard buttons. "Firstly, her friend addressed her as Alberta. Secondly, I called her "Berry" and she said that only parents addressed her like that. And I think, parents aren't supposed to call their daughter that way, unless her real name is Alberta."

"I don't know, man! I mean, why haven't we found her yet then? And... what are you typing?"

I knocked a few more keys and pressed the finalizing "Enter".

"I have posted a message on Facebook and on Twitter and hope it will be reposted by my friends and followers." I answered. "Have you heard of the Six Handshakes Theory?"

"Explain..." Joshua stroke his chin.

"Each person on this planet is only six handshakes away from anyone else on average. So, me and Alberta are bound to have common friends or friends of friends and so on..."

"Do you know that the experiment proving this theory was conducted back in 1967?" my friend objected. "So it is rather questionable whether this is still true in our era of Internet?"

"The studies undertaken by Facebook confirmed that any two users of this social networking site are only several contacts away from each other," I said. "So, this must work!"

"But only if she has an account there!" Joshua said. "Or her friends do, or, at least, somebody who knows her personally and who could pass on your message to her."

"This is, therefore, a pretty reliable method" I smiled. "I haven't yet met anyone who would not be on Facebook."

"Yeah, her grandma might come across your message on Twitter!" Joshua snorted.

"That's just it!" I smiled again.

"Let me look at what you wrote there!" Joshua bent over the table and started reading out loud. "Hello! My name is Simon Parker and I am trying to find the girl who has rocked my world. I hope you will help me. In case you know somebody whose name is "Alberta", tell her about me. If she understands what you are talking about, give her my contacts on Facebook or Twitter. Please, help me find Alberta!"

My mate looked at me and smiled.

"It is so sweet!" he said sarcastically and then added. "You must also make a touching video and post it on YouTube!"

Joshua grinned.

"That's a jolly good idea!" I replied, going straight to "youtube.com" without much ado.

"Matter of fact, this was a joke!" My friend uttered in astonishment.

"I know, man. It is something else that I am going to do," I reassured him. "Even if I make a video requesting help with finding Alberta, just what are the odds somebody will get to watch it?"

"Apart from the two of us?" My dear friend smiled with a helpless gesture. "Probably not many will."

"Exactly... so I will ask a person who has ten million subscribers on YouTube to make a video about my situation!" I said typing a message, "He is a professional Youtuber!"

"Do you know him personally?... Wait... what are you... You've typed "Dear Ryan"... for what... Are you going to leave a message right among the comments under one of his videos?" Joshua was surprised seeing what I was doing.

"Yeah," I answered, "he bases his videos on questions left by his subscribers in the comments section and for him to do this a comment must begin with "Dear Ryan!"

I finished typing and pressed the Enter key. My comment-message-question instantly appeared under the latest video of the famous YouTube personality, "Dear Ryan, can you help me find Alberta?"

"And what's next? Why do you think that he will make a video to answer your plea?" Joshua was puzzled.

"I am not sure. But there's no harm in trying!"

The Internet offered masses of opportunities and I decided to try as many as possible.

"And how is he supposed to understand what you are asking for?" my friend inquired.

"If he becomes interested in my question, he will follow the links to my social networks account in my profile and find all necessary info there," I answered. Then I checked the time on my smartphone.

"OK, I gotta go" I said, getting up from my chair and only at that moment I did realize just how long I had been sitting motionless in front of the monitor – my muscles had become totally numb.

"If you go straight away, you will miss the delicious cake that my mum cooks every Sunday morning!"

"Now that is a most tempting offer, but I have to refuse. I am way too tired to stay," I said and thought to myself "...and my parents will be worried if they wake up and do not find me sleeping peacefully in my room", but I chose to keep my concerns to myself. "Thanks for all your help, man!"

"Oh, shut up, what else are friends for," he said, leading me to the exit. "Don't forget to keep me in the loop about the results of your handshakes..."

"OK! I will"

Once out on the street, I cheered up a bit – the fresh morning breeze did the trick. But as soon as I was on a bus, all that pep disappeared without a trace. The journey back home felt much longer than the journey in the opposite direction which I made the day before, because of the lack of iPod that had vanished somewhere in the pool. My only entertainment was to gaze around, trying to shake off the drowsiness that overcame me. Once at home I tried to keep a low profile, not wanting to wake my parents on their well-deserved day of rest. I fell asleep as soon as I got into my bed.

I was aroused in the afternoon by my smartphone that was ringing persistently. For a second it felt like everything that happened to me the night before was a dream, but the traces of water still visible on my mobile device screen brought me back to reality.

"Hey, Josh!" I answered.

"Hi, bro!" I heard Joshua's vigorous voice. "You are never going to guess, what I have thought of!"

"Give me a sec to clear my mind," I said and sat up, leaning on a pillow. "I am all ears."

"Dude, we were acting like slaves of stereotypes!" I heard him yell out of my smartphone, "Prisoners of our comfort zone! My, we never left it!"

"Honestly, I don't quite get what you are talking about!" I muttered, "Didn't you get any sleep since I left you? Mind you might get overworked and all that."

"I am talking about your girl!" he yelled. "Still wanting to find her? I know why our search produced no results!"

His words suddenly began to make sense. "Then tell me..."

"All steps that we have undertaken to find Alberta were based on modern stereotypes of what a young girl should be like!" Joshua launched into explaining his theory. "She must have social network accounts using her own name, regularly update their content, sharing new hashtagged photos and actively communicating with other people on there, and so on..."

"OK, let's assume you're right," I agreed.

"But this strategy did not work!" my friend yelled so loud that I had to move the smartphone further away from my ear. "So it's time we chose a different path. I mean, we need to give up on the path of stereotypes. What would we do if we found ourselves in a similar situation but in a different epoch, with no Internet at hand? Now, don't answer, I'll tell you! We would try to search for her in the old school manner, only it wouldn't called "old school", and I have already undertaken something along those lines..."

"What is it?" I asked impatiently because at that moment I began to realize that he was probably talking sense.

"I rang up the local radio station and read your message – the one you posted on Facebook and Twitter– on air," Joshua replied. "She may happen to hear it! What's more, today, at the Yankees' game, your message – well, a slightly cut version of it – will be shown on the stadium's large display screen. Do you realize how many people are going to see it?!

"And how did you manage that?"I wondered. "I thought that one's got to wait for months on end if one wants his message displayed there."

"Now that is no concern of yours, boy? Maybe I hacked their system and set the rotation of messages in the way that I needed, or maybe..., well, whatever, mate!" He wasn't supposed to say something definitively over the phone, but I was pretty sure he was grinning at that moment. "Also, tomorrow you will find your message in the local newspapers. And, if you ask me about the chances that a modern-day young girl reads papers, I will tell you – none! But we've decided not to follow stereotypes and it is pretty fit to our path. So, what do make of it all?"

"Bro, I don't even know what to say. You've got me totally gob-smacked here! Your idea's either genius or totally crazy!" I was really confused because I did not quite believe all those tricks would be much help but I was anyways glad that my friend was trying to help.

"I think a simple "thanks" should be quite enough," Joshua laughed, "and also, in case I ever run into the bad luck of losing the girl of my dreams, you've got to promise you'll be the first to rush to my rescue!"

"That you can be jolly sure of! And thanks a million, man," I said. "Honestly, I did not expect anyone to be all ago about helping me."

"You are welcome!" Joshua replied and – yeah it sounded like that! – yawned. "Now I am dropping dead with sleep... I'll give you a buzz later."

"Bye," I pushed the tiny End Conversation button on the screen of my smartphone.

Despite my initial skepticism about Joshua's idea, I realised that was at any rate better than nothing. Still, I pinned my main hopes on Internet as my never-failing sheet anchor. Forcing myself out of bed, I instantly installed myself in front of the computer to check whether I had any messages with news of Alberta. And what I found was several hundreds of questions on social networking websites from my friends who were dying to know who the girl was, and how I had come to know her, and what was so special about her. For all that, I had not received anything that would have advanced me in my search.

"Could Joshua be right after all?" I reflected realising at last that Internet was going to be of little help. "We are prisoners of common stereotypes and in that case pasting up ads on lamp posts would be way more effective than searching on social networking sites!"

On the other hand, social networking sites were always at hand, so I spent the rest of the day going once again through Facebook pages of girls named Alberta, as well as posts on Twitter and photos on Instagram under a variety of hashtags related to parties and partying. But checking it over again produced no results.

Monday morning began very early for me, because I had to go to school. I was a senior student after all. Taking a shower and getting dressed, I headed for the kitchen, for breakfast with my parents was waiting. Mum was making an omelet (at least, that's what it smelt like) and Dad was sitting at the table and reading something on his tablet (or, at least, so it seemed).

"Morning, Simon!" Hearing me coming, Dad distracted for a second from what he was doing. My father worked as a teacher of history and used every morning, or rather each breakfast time, to absorb information, usually fresh news, in order to be, as he himself puts it, "in the swim, updated on what is happening around the world, because anything that occurred just a minute was already History!" It was in fact me who had given him this tablet in order to see his face in the mornings, because before it was always hidden behind large newspaper sheets. This moreover was my way of getting rid of the annoying rustle of paper filling the kitchen.

"Hello, Dad!" I answered, settling myself just opposite him. People say I look so much like my dad – same dark hair, same height, and same eloquent eyes.

"Morning, sweetie!" Mum said, still absorbed in her cooking. "Care for an omelet? It will be ready any minute!"

"Sure!"And did I have a choice?!

I have much less in common with Mum – I am different in appearance from that petite ginger-haired woman. That did not in any way get into the way of us being very close and with amazing mutual understanding being the key word in our relationship. Even with me being naughty as a young child, she never punished me and always had a story about herself once making the same mistake. It was thanks to that that I realised since I was very young that by doing something foolish I would prove nothing to anyone and learnt to be responsible for my own decisions. And even whenever I did mistakes, it was not a thrashing I received, but a chance to correct it. She also worked as a teacher, teaching math to kids.

And just as Mum served breakfast and sat down with us, the doorbell rang all of a sudden.

"Who could that be?" Mum seemed to read our minds, because the visitor, whoever he or she was, was quite unexpected.

"I'll open!" I volunteered to find out an answer to that question and was already about to get up.

"Stay where you are!" Mum stopped me and, putting her hand on my shoulder, she almost forced me to remain sitting. "I'll manage myself!"

She went into the entrance hall and several seconds later the sound of the door opening was heard.

"Hello, ma'am!"A man's voice, loud and confident, filled the house."Does Simon Parker live here?"

"Simon, who is that man?" Father whispered to me.

"I don't know..."

"Ye-es..." Mum's voice sounded slightly unsure, she was obviously baffled by what to think of the early visitor. "And you are..?"

"Cyber Crime Investigation Agency," the man said. "Special agent Clark Atwood! Is Simon here now? I have a few questions to ask him?"

When I heard this, for a split second I was overcome by fear. But it was not the special agent that I was afraid of. Of course, like all hackers, I had done some things in my life that could well result in criminal prosecution, but I was pretty confident, the CCIA would never be able to prove anything. I always duly got rid of all evidence, never leaving any traces that could put anyone on my track. The question was rather – how did they manage to track me down? I mean, me – Simon Parker who lives in New York, not Connor, the leader of the Skynet gang, who had never left anything that could eventually reveal his real identity...well, except one thing. This question put the wind up me, because the only person from the team who knew my real name was my best friend Joshua... Soit was betrayal I was afraid of. They could have got on to him, and he might have betrayed me. However, I quickly banished this creepy thought from my mind and tried to concentrate on what I should do next, because at first I was supposed to have a conversation with the representative of CCIA, and nothing in my countenance or conduct should have betrayed my nervousness (because he must have been well –trained to spot things like that).

"Come in...," Mum said hesitantly.

"Simon, what have you done?" Father inquired in a menacing whisper.

"I don't know...," I shrugged my shoulders. My parents did not know their son was a hacker, and that was clearly not the best moment for them to find out.

Mum and the agent entered the kitchen. He proved to be a plump grey-haired man, of a pretty ripe age, with a voice that was absolutely ill-fitted to him, because it sounded way too aggressive for his stereotypical "kind old man"'s countenance...

"Hello!" Dad instantly got to his feet to greet our "guest." "May I ask what the reason for your visit is?"

"Good morning!" The agent looked around and, focusing his gaze on me, added. "I want to ask this young man a few questions, if you don't mind."

"I did hear about your intentions, but what I want to understand is why it is Simon that you want to interrogate... what happened?" Dad insisted.

"And you are...,"Agent Atwood retorted.

"We are his parents!" Mum informed him, jumping ahead of Dad who had just opened his mouth.

"Then do not worry, I'll definitely tell you everything" Clark Atwood smiled. "What's more, I even insist on your presence here, because your son is a minor... But, could I take a seat first?"

"Certainly," Mum uttered, gesturing at a chair.

"Thank you!" The agent said taking a seat. Mum and Dad also sat down.The omelet was hopelessly forgotten.

"Mister and Missis Parker..." The special agent embarked on explaining, stopping now and then to cast glances at the screen of his smartphone as though checking new text messages."Last night an attempt was made to gain unauthorized access to the confidential information of one very large international company. As you can imagine, had the intruder received the data he sought, he would have used it with mercenary motives – sold it off to this company's competitors. Moreover, we even know who exactly had ordered that attack to be... It wasn't their first attempt to obtain commercial secrets of their market rivals, but that time they change executors. We in the CCIA were ready and reacted instantly. We managed to track down the computer from which that attack was made, and it was located in the basement of a certain house in Quince..."

"I don't understand, why is Simon supposed to be involved in all that?" Mum interrupted his monologue.

"Patience, Mrs. Parker. On the keyboard of that computer, as well as elsewhere in the basement, we found fingerprints of two people," Mr. Atwood said. "The probability being high, one of them was behind the attack... The first was identified as our prime suspect – Joshua Miller, he has already been arrested. If we manage to prove his guilt, he will go to jail for a good five years. And I want to speak to your son about the fingerprints of the second person. Now... is that clear so far? "

"I am sure my son had nothing to do with this whole affair!" Mother was almost screaming at that point.

"Is Simon suspected of something?" Dad kept calm or at least it seemed so. "If so, I think this conversation should only continue in the presence of a lawyer..."

"Oh, you've got me wrong altogether!" the agent laughed. "If I suspected your son of involvement in the actual hacking, believe me, I would have detained him right on the spot! But the only thing I want is to find out the truth. Innocent people have nothing to fear."

Suddenly he stopped laughing and, still looking at me, said with an insinuating voice, "but if you was indeed mixed up in something, it will be far better not to wait until I find out everything myself. And be sure, I will. If you agree to cooperate with us, I guarantee that you, considering that you are a minor, will not go to prison. The maximum punishment you can be sentenced to will be community service... "

"Simon, will you talk to Mr. Atwood or do you prefer to discuss it all with us first?" Dad asked me.

Since the very moment when the special agent entered the room, I was listening eagerly, hanging on each phrase of his, trying to figure out what was the truth and what a mere tactical subterfuge for the sake of investigation. I was happy to find out that my initial fears about Joshua's possible treachery was wrong. But, on the other hand, my spirits sank when I thought that my friend had not listened to my advice and had obviously landed himself in trouble. I wanted to help him somehow, but first I needed to find out whether that was at all possible.

At least, Joshua wasn't caught sitting in front of the computer, this would have furnished the CCIA with all evidence they needed against him. In cases where hackers are involved, it is usually very hard to prove who exactly was in front of the computer at the time of the attack. That is even harder than to find out the exact location of that computer. And, apparently, Mr. Atwood was counting on my testimony. He knew that I had been in Joshua's basement recently and either had known about his plans or had been personally involved. And that is why the special agent obviously reckoned on intimidating me with the prospect of a prison term, proposing either to become a witness in the case, an informer, to put it bluntly, or, alternatively, commuted punishment, like community service. And he clearly reckoned to convince me to be cooperative and tell him everything I know about Joshua. But this was not what I was going to do.

"I will answer all your questions," I said and got up. "But later... now I've got to be off to school..."

"Simon, if you agree to talk with Mr. Atwood, than do it now!" Mum said.

"Don't press him! He probably needs time to think," The agent said looking at my mum and then turned his attention back to me, reaching into his pocket for his card and offering it to me. "When you are ready, call me. But don't delay that for too long..."

I stretched out my hand to take the card, but Mr. Atwood only let me grab it after he winked and added, "...otherwise, I will find out everything myself! But I've already warned you about the consequences of that..."

With yet another smile Mr. Atwood got up and headed for the entrance door. I followed him because I didn't want to discuss what had just happened with my parents at that time, so I preferred spending a few more seconds with him rather than with Mum and Dad. Bad my parents followed us.

"And..." the agent said when already standing in the doorway, "Simon, do not leave the city... just in case... I would not be quite pleased to have to put you on the wanted list altogether."

"Good bye, Mr. and Ms. Parker!" Clark Atwood went out. "Simon, I hope to see you soon."

"Simon, what was that?" Dad took my hand, preventing me from leaving the apartment together with the special agent.

As soon as the entrance door closed after Mr. Atwood, he asked, "Are you really involved in what he was talking about?"

Mother just hugged me.

"It's gonna be alright!" I uttered, releasing myself from Mum's embrace and picking up my bag that was lying all ready on the floor. "Don't worry!"

"Why did you refuse to talk to that... what was his name... Atwood?" Dad asked.

"I just need time to think," I answered and went out.

"Think about what?" Dad called after me, but I had already disappeared inside the elevator. I realized that my parents had heaps of questions to ask me, but I wasn't quite in trim to provide answers for the time being.

At school I was hardly able to concentrate my mind on studies, what with all those thoughts swarming inside my head, in spite of all my attempts to take my mind off the weekend events – meeting Alberta, Joshua's arrest. My mind rambled through possibilities, what I should have done but I was practically unable to do almost anything. Right until the classes were over I didn't really talk to anybody, even though a lot of friends and acquaintances came up to me, inquiring why I hadn't answered the messages they had left on social networking sites and whether I had succeeded in finding that girl or not. But I wasn't going to explain anything, so I fended off with answers that supposed to demonstrate my disinclination to continue that conversation, like "I don't know", "No", "Let's talk later". That was how I whiled away the time until the classes were over. But on my way home I got a call from Joshua!

"Hello, man!" I said.

"Hello, Simon!"

"How are you?"

"I am fine, I was released on bail," he said. "I need to talk to you... and it is not to be discussed over the phone."

"OK, we must get together and talk," I agreed, "The Central Park, one hour from here! The Bank Rock Bay bridge as usual! "

"OK!"

While walking to the meeting place I felt like in a trance – different thoughts flooded over me. They sharply appeared in my mind and, a second later, sharply disappeared. Those feelings could only be compared to what one must feel when solving a tricky math problem, which at first glance isn't supposed to be resolvable. So one has to feverishly go over different formulas, overcome by frustration to an extent, unless one of them appeared to be fit for bringing the result. But I didn't have the formula of solution to the task of helping my best friend and the only thing I could again and again analyze the poor available data, hoping that conversation with Joshua will change something.

When I got to the Bank Rock Bay, he was already there. Joshua was staring at the water, leaning on the bridge rail. I came closer and stood near him.

"I am glad to see you, mate..." Joshua slowly raised his eyes at me. This was probably the first time ever that I saw him without his regular smile. "Me too. How are you?"

"I am in serious trouble, Simon," he answered. "Sorry for getting you into this mess..."

"I wish you could see my parents' faces when the special agent came in!" I smiled and added, "Honestly, now I badly want to say "I'd told you", but you, probably, have already understood it yourself."

"Yeah, I should have listened to you," he said quietly. "Now I wouldn't be facing possible five years in prison..."

He remained silent for a moment.

"At least, I will move from my mum's basement!" He forced a smile which didn't look quite natural however.

"What did your lawyer say?"

"The CCIA didn't have direct evidence against me, but they had a combination of circumstantial pieces, which would be quite enough for the court to sentence me...," Joshua paused. "Nevertheless, they most likely wouldn't take any chances and will offer me a deal – a confession in exchange for a reduced term. But they wouldn't be in a hurry to do that, – first they will try to find incontestable evidence, which would allow them to avoid this. And you know what I think about this whole situation?"

"It's hard to guess," I shrugged my shoulders.

"Maybe I should leave the city, so long as I have an opportunity?" Saying this, Joshua looked at me. "I could, for example, go to Mexico or even further away, start everything from..."

"Do you really think it is a solution?" I interrupted him.

"I don't even know what to think. I just don't want to go to prison," he once again shifted his gaze to the water.

"Joshua, how long have we been friends?" I asked and, without giving him a chance to reply, continued, "Four years... During this time, we have carried out dozens of hacker's attacks, and each of it could have got us into really big trouble. And, it seems to me, we have gone way too far..."

"Not we, I have," he interrupted me. "You had warned me, but I didn't listen. And now we both know the result. I am going to jail... As soon as I am free again, I will take to something totally different from hacking. I am obviously not good at that... I don't know yet what exactly this is going to be, but I am pretty certain that it will be something legal!"

At that moment pieces of a puzzle began to fit into a whole picture and I finally realised that I had the solution. The desperate situation which I previously wasn't able to do anything about now fully depended on my actions.

"Honestly, that is exactly what I wanted to hear from you. I know how you can be saved," I declared.

"How?!" Joshua stared at me, his voice sounded slightly confused.

"I will confess instead of you!" I answered. "They don't have any direct evidence proving that the attack was perpetrated precisely by you in person, and also my fingerprints were found on the key board of your computer..."

"But the punishment..."

"I am a legal minor, and that means they won't be able to send me to prison," I interrupted him. "The worst punishment for me would be community service!"

"It might ruin your whole life! I can't ask you to do that"

"You don't need to!" I took out the smartphone and the card which special agent Atwood gave me that morning out of my pocket. "I prefer to work a bit for the society rather than see my friend in jail."

"Simon, think again," Joshua tried to stop me as I was dialing the number. But his attempts were in vain. I was the only person who was able to help him and couldn't have possibly chosen to act in a different way.

"Hello, Agent Atwood. Simon Parker speaking. I've got something to tell you," I said unhesitatingly as soon as I heard "Hello!" at the other end.

At that moment I felt a sudden relief and even something of a triumph, such that is supposed to be felt when a tricky math task is successfully accomplished.

### *****

"Mr. Parker, honestly speaking, when I started this conversation, I wasn't expecting to hear such an interpretation of the circumstances of your first case; you surprised me indeed!" Mr. Johnson said. "As I understand, this was all followed by a trial?"

"You are right, but everything turned out to be more complicated than it seemed at first glance. Having a person who was ready to plead guilty was something the investigators quite welcomed on the whole, taking into account their lack of evidence. But special agent Clark Atwood did not believe my story, and only the pressure from the prosecutor finally made him bring the case before the court with me in the dock. That happened several months later.

As I expected, the punishment wasn't particularly severe – hours of community service and prohibition to use the Internet. I remember the words of the Judge: "It is the duty of every court while administer justice to isolate people whose behavior is a threat to the society. This measure serves to achieve several purposes: reformation and rehabilitation, punishment and instruction to other civilians. This measure serves to achieve several purposes: reformation and rehabilitation, punishment and instruction to other civilians. You, Simon Parker, standing in front of me now, are not dangerous for citizens around you. But an electronic device, which could allow you to use the Internet, turns into the terrible weapon in your skillful hands and makes you dangerous. Because of this, I have resolved that you are must be isolated from the Internet. For this I hereby deprive you of a legal possibility to use any electronic device which operates on a processor. This will be both punishment and a severe lesson on the importance of abiding by the social rules for you and for anyone who might be inspired to follow your example and enter the criminal path. Moreover, your social networking accounts will be deleted because everybody must know – using the Internet with criminal motives may result in one's total deprivation of the right to use the World Wide Web!"

"And what about Alberta?"the attorney asked me.

"I found her, but not because of the steps I had taken to do so. I met her in a least expected place, just where I was bound to do my penitentiary community service – the clinic treating social networking addiction. She began to attend it for counselling when I had already worked at that clinic for several months. We almost instantly started dating."

"But if she had a problem like that, why didn't you succeed in finding her on social networking sites?"

"Because when I tried to find her, she wasn't already there. At that time she had no accounts."

"And how was that possible?"

"Her parents prohibited her from everything to do with social networking. They appeared to be such paranoiacs," I explained, "that it took her ages to convince them to allow her to even register. And her desire to find me was a major catalyst in opposition her parents. But she got herself an account right on that day when, according to the judgment of the court, my accounts were deleted. Then her parents forced her to attend a counselor in order to "adjust" her perception of social networking in the way they needed."

"That means that because of her parents you were both unable to find each other, but, on the other hand, it was because of them that you finally met?" the lawyer smiled.

"That's right!" I smiled in return.

### Chapter IV

"Your story was a real eye-opener for me. Analysing your first case, I would have never thought that you pleaded guilty in your friend's case in order to save him. But let's move on from those events which occurred a year ago to the closer past and discuss what happened last week!" Mr. Jonson said, looking through some papers from the thick folder which he put on a desk when we started conversation.

"OK!" I agreed, staring intently at an impressive heap of sheets in his hands, trying to guess what those were.

"These are copies of your case materials, of the second case. It took me quite a bit of effort to get them while this stage of the investigation is still in progress, but they will be a great help for us!!" Spotting curiosity on my face and anticipating my question, the lawyer explained: "According to the CCIA information, you committed your... let's call it "act" on the premises of the social networking addiction clinic on Monday, July 17. Would you deny it?"

"I don't. On July 17 I really made the "act" at the place where I had previously been doing community service."

"OK. Now tell me, about the events that preceded it and when the intention to commit that act appeared in your mind," putting the copies aside and looking directly at me, the lawyer asked. "Mr. Parker, in other words, I want to know what was the starting point in the chain of events which brought you here."

"I think it all began with a Skype call on Monday, July 11, that initially didn't seem to be anything special. I heard that call, accidently being at the reception desk in clinic's lobby. I wasn't able to answer it because of the court prohibition and I didn't find out who that was," I started my story, but was interrupted by Mr. Johnson. As soon as he heard the phrase "on July 11", he instantly started searching for something among the copies of the case materials and, finding the one he needed, exclaimed: "Wait, Mr. Parker! As you said you were in the clinic, at that time?"

"That's right!" I answered.

"So that means that the working day began. What time was it?"

"About 10 am or something."

"According to the case materials, there was one more person who saw you that day... Henry Hall. I will quote an extract from the protocol of his interrogation," the lawyer said and started reading from the paper.

"Question: When was the last time you saw Simon Parker?

Henry Hall: Our last meeting took place in the morning of July 11, at around eight o'clock. We met in the doorway of the house where he lived. I was on my way out and he was coming in."

"Yeah, that is how it was," I interrupted Mr. Jonson.

"Where were you coming from so early? You didn't sleep at home that night, did you?"

"No, your guess is wrong. On that Monday I woke up in my bed at 6.30 am."

"Then what were you doing between 6.30 and 8 am? Mr. Parker, I've already asked you not to omit anything. Begin with the morning of July 11, when you woke up. I need to know about all the events of these days."

"Right..."

### *****

Following my newly acquired habit, I woke up very early. I started doing that after the decision of the Judge drastically changed my lifestyle, replacing sleepless nights in front of the computer with an opportunity to enjoy morning freshness. Honestly speaking, I don't know to which side the pendulum of my choice would shake, if only decision between nights and mornings depended on me now.

I forced myself out of bed as soon as I opened my eyes and before the treacherous thought "Maybe I should spend several more minutes under the blanket" made its way into my head. It took a certain effort of will, but actually much more effort would be necessary to get out of bed several seconds later. Usually, people don't wake up so early without a strong necessity, and I also would have not if I hadn't come to like morning's time.

I think, each part of a day has a specific mood to it, which is imparted to people. It is like the difference between "tight working" days and "an adrenaline rush in one's blood" at nights, which arouse different emotions in people. And mornings are no exception to this rule, since they have their own flavour. Especially sunny ones which make one feel like one's entered a holiday after a long academic year or has arrived at a vacation after infinite labor routine. At such moments it looks like there is no "can't do", and everything is still ahead. And those few who want to feel it over and over again, wake up very early and find an excuse that suits them best to get out. I chose jogging – a pas time that allowed me to enjoy New York sights and gave a lot of time to spend on thinking. I had started to appreciate both of these much more since I was prohibited from using an iPod.

It all started with me going out for a jog that Monday on July 11 which was the beginning of a chain of event, which eventually brought me to San Diego pre-trial detention center. As always I ran from my home to the Central Park, fed pigeons there and then started out on my way back. But before coming home there was something I needed to do, which had also become a habit by that time. I made a leeway from my regular "Central Park – home" route, heading for one of Manhattan's skyscrapers. I entered the lobby of the building and headed straight to the receptionist who called himself "a concierge".

"Good Morning, Monsieur Simon!" I heard the man. Even though it's been a good 15 years since he arrived in the USA from France, he hadn't lost his French chic.

"Hello, Pierre!" I replied to the smiling man. I knew him, because that was the building where my girlfriend Alberta lived, and I had paid several visits to her place until her father prohibited our meetings.

He was sitting behind a giant antique table. The wall behind him was covered by lockers serving as mail boxes for apartments. On the desk was a bouquet of red roses, through which peered a name card.

Spotting it at once I instantly asked: "Is it from him again?"

"Yes. He was here again, again instructed me to have this delivered "personally into her hands", again haughty throw ten dollars on the desk as if I needed his money," the man answered. "I am sick and tired of him. Was it not for our tricks, yours and mine, I would tell him to get lost next time!"

The bunch of roses on the table was intended for my girlfriend from a boastful and overbearing guy Donovan who was her ex-boyfriend. I had explained to him several times over that since Alberta chose me he was supposed to shove off. But my explanation didn't produce much effect, and every morning he came to that place and passed on a bunch of roses via the receptionist. I did not have a shade of a doubt that Berry wouldn't accept it, however, I was not going to let him get away with this impudence. It would have been like showing my inability to protect my girl from an annoying suitor. So every morning I went there and changed the card saying "From Donovan!" to one saying "From Simon!" while the concierge was looking away.

That kind of behavior was in line with my hacker's spirit. It is common to think that hackers deal with program codes, but that isn't altogether true. I mean, our real opponent is not programs, but the people who made those programs. To be a good hacker one needs to understand how people's minds work, and psychology skill is the key. Honestly speaking, studying social behavior is not easier than learning program codes. But both have a lot in common. Donovan thought that once he had developed a perfect plan, it sufficed to regularly apply it for a certain purpose to be achieved – it was like a program. But every program has vulnerabilities and the soft spot of Donovan's plan was Pierre. And I took advantage of that. I mean Pierre turned out to be my ally and kind red spirit (who would go at any lengths for the sake of real love. He was a Frenchman after all). The court prohibition could prevent me from using computers, but it could not alter my nature. I always tried to take advantage even of a disadvantageous situation.

"I need to find out who should be informed about correspondence this morning!" Pierre winked at me and took a red leather notebook and a pen from the desk. Then he got up, turned his back on me and started looking at lockers and making notes.

I replaced the card with my own which I got out of my pocket a split second earlier.

"See ya tomorrow!" I said.

"Au revoir," the concierge muttered, turning his head in my direction just for a sec.

### *****

"Very interesting," the lawyer remarked, looking through the copies of case materials.

"What exactly?" I inquired.

The protocol of Donovan Roberts' questioning," Mr. Johnson paused, reading something to himself, and then added. "He didn't know anything about the essence of the case, but he tried to discredit you in every way he could. So now it has become clear to me that the reason for that was the girl. But I've interrupted you, continue!"

### *****

Upon my return home, in the entrance hall of the building I bumped into the postman – a tall round-shouldered guy Henry who started his work before the majority of people opened their eyes. Henry always acted very weird, and it made him absolutely unlike all stereotypes of a postman.

I often met him after jogging and each time I greeted him, but he rarely answered, usually turning his head and pretending not to hear me.

"Hello, Henry!" I was true to myself, not really expecting a reply.

"You've got a letter today. I've already put it into your mailbox." the postman murmured quite unexpectedly, probably deciding that I was worthy of a brief conversation with him.

"Thanks, Henry!" I said.

"That's my job!" the postman uttered and disappeared behind the door.

### *****

"It is this meeting with Henry Hall that interests me," the lawyer said. "Henry was questioned by a CCIA agent about who the sender of the letter was. Tell me about that!"

"Actually, Henry only delivered envelopes for me from one snail mail correspondent."

### *****

Very few people in modern times send and receive classical snail mail using service of the traditional post. But that was the only option for me, because I was prohibited from using the Internet. After all, the difference between electronic and snail mail messages is not all that big. Of course, digital ones are more convenient, practical and faster, but not palpable, which is sometimes really important in my opinion.

After postman Henry served the role of notice about new message, I walked up to the mailbox and opened it impatiently using the small key, which was analogous to login and password for the electronic version of a message receptacle. I was trembling slightly, just like it usually happens when the phrase "You have 1 new message" or "Inbox (1)" appear on the screen of the monitor, and you are dying to click on it to find out who sent it to you. So once I had the envelope in my hands, I instantly glanced at the "from" line. The identity of the sender did not surprise me, however. It was my only snail mail correspondent – Clark Atwood. That very Clark Atwood, the CCIA agent who didn't really believe my self-incrimination and wanted to send my best friend to prison a year ago. But the prosecutor didn't care about his opinion and put me on trial. That was his last investigation. After I was sentenced, he resigned and wrote me a letter asking why I had done that for Joshua. I replied... not answering his question, just asking how he was doing. Several letters on we became friends. Actually, it turned out that we had a lot in common, I mean, we both had become unable to do stuff which we liked and were good at – hacking and investigating hacking attacks correspondingly.

I came home and put the envelope on the table in my room – I had no time to open it because I was in a hurry. After taking a shower and a breakfast, I went to the place where I was to do community service – a very fashionable and expensive social networking addiction clinic.

### *****

"Tell me more about that clinic, its operations, what exactly you were supposed to do there," the lawyer asked.

### *****

"I think nothing could be more characteristic with regard to the clinic more than the person who founded it – and that was a very ambitious and remarkable psychologist Ryan Roberts. Previously he had been counseling celebrities, helping them to find harmony in their family relationships. Doing that he became a celebrity himself. Ryan often appeared on different TV shows, magazines and parties. Then he probably became bored with the family therapy domain or maybe it ceased to provide him with an income that corresponded to his expenditures, so Ryan decided embark on a new, modern venue – treating social networking addiction. And he made the "right" choice. The media frenzy surrounding his new clinic allowed him to develop that business to a scale he could only hope to. But Ryan wasn't interested in people who really needed help. His target were those who were able to pay for his services, even if they didn't need one. He skillfully capitalised on the generation gap. Parents concerned with their children's addiction to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, were ready to spend considerable amounts of money to have that "cured". Ryan became the person who agreed to accept their financial sacrifice in exchange for a promise to help their children.

Married couples, who had previously been counseled by him on how to build a strong lasting relationship, later brought their own kids to Ryan, and he must have explained to the younger generation how to live in the real world, not in the virtual one. And I became involved in that too. Obviously seeing Internet addiction as something equal to hacking (or just mockingly perhaps) the Judge chose the clinic as a place where I was supposed to do the community service. I was supposed to assist the psychologists working there, just like the volunteers did. And that place really had a great impact on me. It was there that I finally found Alberta, whom I believed to have been lost for me forever, and made many other friends. Moreover, I got to know at what lengths some people are prepared to go to achieve their purpose. I realized that Ryan, who in his TV appearances seemed to be a nice and prudent person, in reality was something absolutely different when money came into question; and I moreover found out that his son Donovan, my girlfriend's ex, had inherited from his father the ambition and the conviction that means of achieving your goals matter really little," I said.

"OK, let's get back to that day, July 11, when it all began," the lawyer said. And as far as the clinic played the key role in your "act", I need to know everything that had happened there with your involvement starting from July 11 till present. You must tell me absolutely everything – what you did, conversations that you had, gossip you heard..."

### *****

I was in rather high spirits when I set off on my way from home to the clinic. That journey usually took roughly twenty minutes, so very soon I spotted the familiar shape of the place where I was assigned to do my community service – the compact building. Several floors of glazed metal-concrete constructions forming a roundish outline, resembled a huge drop of water. This was meant to be evidence of prospering business, because nothing would work better to persuade clients that they were going to be offered most efficient and advanced service than impressive architectural design. Ryan worked very hard to find an investor who would have helped him to buy that building. But in the end all that "hype" that had cost him a fortune fully paid its way – the parking in the front of the entrance was always full of clients' expensive cars. And that despite the fact that the building was clearly too big for the clinic's business needs, the ground floor alone was operating on a permanent basis, with the rest of the premises remaining vacant.

Later I got to know about Ryan's ambitious plans to expand the clinic's operations, but that was later...

I came to the glass doors that slid open automatically in front of me.

"Hi, Jess!" I greeted the girl who was standing in the lobby behind the reception desk. Her pretty face, amazing smile and pleasant voice were meant to captivate everyone who came in.

"Hello, Simon!" She smiled in response, leaning over the reception desk, as if trying to eliminate a barrier between us. But I was in a hurry, with no time to talk to her. The best way to slip past was to anticipate a conversation opener which she was looking for with any "business routine" question.

"Is Samantha in her cabinet?" I asked in a very "serious" tone of voice.

"Yes, she came some fifteen minutes ago," Jessica answered, slightly flustered.

"Thank you!" I didn't give her a chance to say something else and demonstratively walked past her into a long corridor, which was located behind the reception table and had doors to counselors' offices on all sides. Samantha's cabinet was the second door after Ryan's office whose door was for some reason wide open at that moment. I wanted to avoid meeting him – he wasn't the nicest of people to speak to in the morning (especially for someone who wished to keep his spirits high), so I tried to slip past keeping a low profile. That wasn't difficult and several seconds later I came into the office of Samantha Collins – my community service supervisor assigned by the Judge. It was on her regular reports which she submitted to the Judge that the course of my penal servitude depended. She was also Alberta's personal counselor. I think, that was no coincidence, but yet another proof of that me and Berry were bound to meet.

Samantha had worked as a counselor at the clinic since it was opened and was considered one of the best specialists. When I saw her for the first time, I didn't expect the two of us to find much in common. Her strong-willed features, sharp voice and anorexic body classified her in my book as a stereotypical career-maker. I expected her to be kind of "Ryan's" person, and it seemed to me that she would therefore be anything but nice in personal communication. And that fact could have made my obligation to do community service, which I wasn't exactly looking forward to in general, even more intolerable. However, the first impression, as it often happens, appeared to be totally misleading. As soon as we began our conversations, I discovered for myself an absolutely different Samantha. Her gestures, mimicry, her manner to communicate, as well as what she said – I was captivated by her charismatic personality which conferred on her strict, almost manly features, a shade of softness and femininity.

"Hello, Sam!" I greeted the woman who smiled as soon as saw me entering her office. She was rummaging through some papers on her desk. On the back of her armchair hung a black jacket while she herself stayed in a white blouse and a knee-long skirt of the same colour as the jacket.

Despite the generation and the fact that she was my supervisor, in communication with me Samantha made no attempt to hide her real personality behind a status mask and behaved as if we were friends, encouraging me to do the same. And I think we really were. I don't know whether that was a professional trust-building trick or she simply was took fancy to me, but this style of communication added a touch of sincerity to our conversations.

"Oh, Simon! You are right on time, come in!" she continued smiling. "Hello!"

"You're looking great!" I paid her a compliment and I had two reasons for doing that. First, she really looked very nice and, second, I intended to ask a favour from her and tried this simple trick to get on the right side of her.

"Thank you, Simon!" she was still smiling. She was clearly in a good mood, so I decided not to delay asking. It also seemed to be an appropriate moment, because finding time for conversation during the working day would have been way more difficult. I sat down on the couch which was meant to help visitors and patients relax.

"Sam, I've got something to ask you, it concerns me and Alberta," I finally managed to catch Samantha's attention and she disrupted her search for something among the papers lying on her desk, and looked up at me.

"I am listening to you, Simon. You know, I am always ready to discuss anything that bothers you and Alberta and do all I can to help. You can count on me there." From her lips it sounded as something most ordinary, as though these were just words and nothing behind them. As a trained psychologist, she must have said something of the kind several times a day to each of her visitors in order to win their trust. It seemed strange why she would use this trick with me. But then I noticed that she tightened slightly and her smile became less sincere – probably at that moment all possible requests (the range of which was limited only by her imagination) scrolled through Sam's mind. Some of those she must have been afraid of.

"Tomorrow will be an important day for us – six months since we started dating. You know, I am not entirely on fabulous terms with her parents. I think, they won't agree to let us spend time together," I didn't finish the sentence because I noticed signs of enlightenment on her face – Samantha had grasped what I was getting at: "Could I take her out during consultation hours?"

I tried to read Sam's reaction from her mimicry and body language. And judging from what I saw, the chances of my request being granted were pretty slim. She shrank slightly, her smile disappeared, her eyes focused on me with a piercing gaze... Obviously my request was one of those that had crossed her mind a split second earlier eliciting something like "I hope Simon won't ask me that!"

"Simon, you must understand that that is impossible. First, during our counseling sessions I am responsible for her and, moreover, it is for a reason that she visits me."

I interrupted her. "It is not necessary to reiterate the "reason" for which she visits this place. You and me, we both know that the real reason for your meetings three times a week is that Ryan receives nice sums of money from her rich parents each month, intimidating them with the fashionable diagnosis "social networking addiction".

"Simon, tone down!" this time she interrupted me.

Although I had already myself realised that professional etiquette didn't allow her to discuss Alberta with the same ease as she could criticise Ryan and his decisions in our conversations. So I had gone too far.

"Sorry, Sam!" I apologised. "Actually, I am glad that Alberta comes to you, because you are the most normal person in the entire clinic."

I got up from the couch and went out. Despite Samantha's refusal I had achieved my purpose, because I didn't count on her consent from the start. My main purpose was to put her in the know. I had realised that she couldn't possibly comply with my request. But in case of our absence, she was supposed to know the reason for it and not to make a fuss about it, or maybe she would even provide a cover-up. That was why I only needed to warn her that neither me, nor Alberta would appear at her office at the agreed hour... And I did it. Hackers rarely do things that are obviously intended to end in a tangible result. Much more often it takes a complex combination of actions in order to achieve your purpose while getting away with it unnoticed.

### *****

"You've mentioned that Alberta's parents were against her meeting you. What was, in your opinion, the reason for that and was that resistance really strong?" the lawyer asked me.

"Alberta's parents held her under close surveillance controlling every step of hers, including where, when and with whom she spent her time. They were concerned with absolutely every single aspect of her everyday life. Moreover, it all went past simple concern. They drove her to school and picked her up at the end of the day, the same was the case with the clinic and other places that she visited. Of course, they weren't all too happy about the fact that their daughter, who, in their opinion, spent too much time on social networking sites, was dating a convicted hacker, – the fact which, in their eyes, put me on par with an experienced criminal, capable of offering Alberta something "prohibited" – the Internet!"

"Would the word "conflict" be apt for describing the relationship between you and her parents?" the lawyer inquired, writing something down in his notebook.

"I can't in all fairness describe our relations as conflict, resentment for me would be closer to the truth," I answered. "Mostly it was aversion on her father Sean Martin's part!"

"And what, in your opinion, was the reason for Sean Martin's negative attitude towards you?"

"That is difficult to say for sure, but I think the reason for his resentment for me was the characteristic desire of all fathers to protect their daughters from bad guys. And the assumption invariably is that the guy is a priori bad. I mean, there is no need to have any evidence proving this. Moreover, if any additional evidence of the negative influence appeared, like my hacker's past in my case, then struggling to overcome this stereotype would become a very complicated task. Also, Sean always had the "example" of a "pleasant" young man – both the son of his best friend Ryan and Alberta's ex-boyfriend Donovan – near at hand. So Sean tried to keep me away in every manner possible, specifically forbidding to Berry not only to date, but even to communicate with me. He wanted Alberta to understand that breaking down with Donovan was a big mistake. He even helped this guy to find a way to be near her.

The situation was made even worse by the fact that Sean was notorious for his obstinacy. He had made it his habit to achieve his goals by means fair or foul. Himself a professional athlete in the past, he later became a successful entrepreneur and owner of several networks of gyms in his present life. His ambitiousness and vision at first of the role of each member of the team in scoring victory and later of employees as cogs in a business machine whose goal was to make profit, had led him to believe that same rules applied to family life. A football player must obey the team coach if he wishes to score a goal; company's stuff must obey a manager in order for business to be flourishing; and a daughter must obey her father who knows what is good for his child and what is not. He totally mixed up these things, and even his own motto which he was fond of repeating: "I am running my business like if it was my family and my family like if it was my business!" was a good proof of this.

The sources of bad influence over Alberta, Sean believed, were both social networking websites, because spending time on them was a waste of time in his book, and myself, because of my problems with the law and the firm sense of entitlement to an opinion of my own (and it wasn't clear, which thing about me he believed to be the worst). He saw these as potential threats to the fulfillment of Alberta's major goal – getting into Brown. Actually, this goal was set not by Berry herself, but by Sean. She had been taught by him since childhood that the University was her destiny, so to speak. And because she was now a senior at high school, Sean's pressure reached its apogee. He believed that she was supposed to spend every second of her free time on studying instead of communicating with friends, particularly on the Internet. But Alberta didn't share his ambition to get into that college. She always wanted to become a model and possessed all necessary qualities for that. Moreover, the giant number of "likes" collected by each of her photos uploaded on social networking websites evidenced as well as possible that she was definitely predestined to find recognition.

The reason for her active "virtual" life had nothing to do with social networking websites as such – those merely became tools for self-expression for Alberta, but rather with her very personality. Being by nature an extravert, she got used to expressing herself through communication with people, demanding to be the centre of attention every single second of her life. And attention simply glued to her as to a magnet. At highschool where she studied nobody could compare to her in terms of popularity – she was cheerleading squad captain, head of several clubs and was interested numerous other activities. As soon as she registered on social networking sites, all of that activity was transferred there – onto her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages where she had more friends and followers than some celebrities do on their pages. And she gratified those who followed her life with permanent reports of her actions and thoughts which instantly gathered hundreds of "likes" and comments below. I mean, her social networking accounts had actually become something of social media. And she was rarely seen without a smartphone or a tablet in her hands – but it was just the way she was!

However, Sean showed a fantastic inability to understand that, considering time spent on the Internet as wasted. Because of this, he brought Berry to the clinic where she was supposed, in his opinion, to understand just how badly the social networking had been affecting her. He would have never done it, had he not been advised to this effect by his friend Ryan who first frightened Sean with the growing influence of social networking websites on the younger generation and then directed his attention to the "possible sign of addiction" manifested in Alberta's behavior. Of course, Ryan had made due note to himself of the pleasant fatness of Sean's checkbook before.

The words of Mr. Roberts who was striving to make money using the common prejudices and fears about the Internet as whole and about social networking websites in particular, took their toll in that case. Alberta was forced to attend Samantha's office three times a week by her father, who was persuaded by Ryan that it was a guarantee of his daughter receiving "professional medical help" with solving the problem of excessive dependence on social networking. Initially Berry desperately resisted the obligation to visit the clinic. But after having got to know Samantha better, she stopped seeing time spent there as something of penal servitude. Sam managed to win her trust. So Alberta saw Samantha as a friend, and that perception was supported by the fact that Sam didn't share Sean's and Ryan's negative opinions about social networks. Samantha didn't chastise Berry, did not lecture her. Of course, Sam worked at the clinic and that meant that she worked for Ryan, but unlike him, she saw difference between those who really needed help and those who came to her for consultations for reasons other than that, like Alberta.

As for Berry's mother – Laura, a former ballerina from Italy, she obeyed Sean on all instances and because of that her attitude towards me was no better," I said.

"OK," Mr. Jonson uttered. "Let's get back to that Monday... July 11"

### *****

After leaving Samantha's office, I went to the lobby. I saw that Jessica had found someone to talk to – two volunteers, Anthony and Steven. The first one, Anthony, was a diligent medical student, he was wearing a blue shirt and black jeans. His interest in summer volunteering at this fashionable clinic was pretty understandable. On the contrary, Steven's reasons for coming to help at the clinic were a complete mystery. Though there were certain assumptions. A shock of long plaits on his head, the shabby jeans and sandals on his feet inevitably suggested that it had been desire to have access to drugs that had brought him to the clinic. It was only their absence there that had prevented him from fulfilling his clever plan, simple as that. And as far as he didn't know how else to occupy his summer days, he stayed for the remaining time. Though that was only a hypothesis for he was a fairly normal guy who always accumulated fun around himself.

Steven was holding a strange item which I was only able to identify as I approached. To my surprise he was holding a boomerang. He waved it, as if trying to throw it, but stopped at the last moment – that was only demonstration before the amazed Jessica of how to use that toy for the intended purpose. And, judging by her laugh, Jess was absolutely fine with testing the boomerang in practice.

"Simon, Simon, look what Steven has got!" she exclaimed noticing my presence.

"Yeah, check it out, Simon!" Steve echoed her.

"I see, Jess...," I said and shook hands of Tony and Steven. "Hello, guys".

"We are going to throw it on the parking, are you in?" Steve's offer was accompanied by actively flinging his arms vigorously about.

"No, guys, I need to catch Alberta, she will be here soon," I too wanted would not mind trying boomerang in practice, but more than that I longed to be able to see Berry in the lobby before she would disappear in Samantha's office.

"Simon, would you agree to stay at the reception desk, while I am away, because I so badly want to go with them, but somebody could call all of a sudden," Jessica begged.

"Ok, go" I didn't refused her modest request.

"It is early for someone to call, but in case..." Jess continued to beg for, as though she didn't heard, that I gave consent.

"Are you still here?" I slightly raised my voice jokingly.

In a merry hubbub, Anthony, Steven and Jessica headed for the parking, which was hardly an appropriate location for throwing a boomerang because of its small size. Moreover, Jess had never done it before. But these circumstances were of little concern to them even after several unsuccessful attempts. The boomerang didn't want to come back despite all their efforts. The wide panoramic glass window provided an ideal opportunity to observe them from where I was sitting in the lobby and I couldn't keep from smiling.

But I was suddenly distracted from that show by a very familiar sound of bubbles bursting. On the screen of the monitor standing on the reception desk the incoming Skype call window popped up. I automatically stretched my hand to the mouse, but instantly withdrew it, remembering that any touch of working computer devices would be considered as an infringement of the court prohibition. Skype persistently continued to notify about the incoming call, but I wasn't able to respond. Jessica wasn't looking at me so trying to give her a sign was quite useless. I had no clue as to who was calling, but from that point on I practically became involved in a chain of events that eventually brought me to the San Diego pre-trial detention centre. I only thought that if it was an important call, Jessica could be in trouble.

But my hesitations as to how that situation should have been tackled evaporated as soon as I saw Alberta entering the building. I just wasn't able not to switch my attention to her. Really it was totally beyond me to take my eyes off the girl who possessed the ability to light up the space around her. Beautiful face, charming eyes, magnificent lips, which was slightly stretched in smile, chocolate shade skin, black curls, disobediently bouncing up and back on her gentle shoulders with each her movement – I fell in love with Berry every time when I saw her and that time didn't became an exception. I made several steps towards her, while she crossed the remaining space between us and sank into my embrace.

"So, Simon, did she agree?" she kissed me on the lips, obviously convinced that a kiss was way better than any other form of greeting.

"Everything is alright, don't worry," I bated her curiosity. Though Sam didn't give her consent to our date during the next consultation visit, I wasn't bothered by that fact. However, I knew just how emotional Alberta was and didn't want to initiate her into my little plan. "You are late so let's go. I'll take you to Samantha's office," finally managing to take my glance from her eyes, I looked at the clock hanging on the wall above the reception desk. Bearing in mind the disappearance of smile from her face, she obviously didn't want to obey this. But neither did she resist, and so we went to Samantha's cabinet holding hands.

"Simon, have you prepared a present for our mini-anniversary already?" the girl turned her head in my direction. She was oblivious of her surroundings, staring in my face, thereby making me both our navigator and a helmsman on the way to the Sam's office.

"Probably," I smiled, turning my head towards her for a second.

"And what is it?" Alberta inquired moving as close as possible to me as ifs he wanted to hear something that could be only said in a whisper.

"That is a surprise!" I answered, still staring straight before me, pretending I did not notice her little ruse.

"Simon!" she exclaimed, stopping and grabbing my hand. "Do tell me!"

"Then it won't be a surprise!" I slowed down for a second and turned to face her, but then went on forward, dragging Alberta behind. "Come on, let's go!"

"But don't you want to know what I have prepared for you?" the girl asked, obviously trying to propose a mutually advantageous exchange.

"I don't."

"Why?!"Berry was stunned. "Aren't you curious?"

"Because you won't tell me anything, unless I reveal what my surprise is all about!" I smiled.

"Fine!" the girl said, clearly disappointed caused by failing of her plan.

We stopped in front of the door to the Sam's office and stood opposite each other.

"We won't see each other again today."

Usually we tried to spend the few brief minutes before and after Alberta's meeting with Sam together but not on that day.

"Why?" the girl asked with upset in voice.

"I've gotta be off," I answered. "There is some stuff to be done."

"So...," She looked me in the eyes and a moment later added quietly, "till tomorrow."

"Till tomorrow," I echoed and hugged her. "And don't you forget where we are meeting!"

I was a bit worried about that, since I was unable to text or phone her to remind her.

"I remember!" she answered and disappeared behind the door.

My way outside passed through the lobby, where Jessica had already took her position. Anthony and Steven weren't near.

"Simon! You are a dummy!" Jess addressed me as I walked past her.

"What are you talking about?" I was surprised to hear this and turned in her direction.

"I've realised why you don't have accounts on social networking websites! You just don't know how to handle computer! You are a dummy!" she laughed. "While you were sitting at the reception desk, you had an incoming call on Skype! Didn't you manage to answer it?"

"You're right, I didn't manage. As for social networks – I am dating two girls at once and just don't want them to find out about each other," I joked it off because I didn't want to reveal the real reason behind both my inability to answer that Skype call and my not having accounts on social networking websites.

Nobody at the clinic, except Alberta, Ryan and Samantha, knew that I was doing community service there as part of my penalty, another part of which was the prohibition to use electronic devices. All of the clinic's staff, including Jessica, believed that I was volunteering there. If she had found out about my hacker's past and about the trial, everybody, including Anthony and Steven, would have got to know that. And the stream of questions like "What did you do?", "How were you arrested", "Were you handcuffed?" would have been inevitable. But I didn't want to give them food for gossip and becoming a local celebrity. I therefore tried to avoid discussing with Jessica or other people issues that were sort of delicate for me in order not to give them superfluous cause for reflections. And the joke about dating two girls seemed to be just the right thing to cut her curiosity.

"I hope you won't tell Alberta about that!" I winked to her. "Jess, I am going out to buy a coffee for Samantha. Do you want something?"

Though Sam didn't ask me for a coffee, I thought that it would be a good excuse to slip out of the clinic. If Ryan would be looking me, Jess would have provided an excuse for my absence.

"No, thanks!"Jessica's radiant snow-white smile testified that she was not much of a coffee drinker– so the answer was sort of predictable.

Leaving the building, I saw Donovan who was yelling without mincing a word at Steven and Anthony. The two guys were standing silently opposite to him, looking down. Upon coming closer I was once again convinced that Ryan's son still hadn't changed his mind as far as considering himself to be better than others went.

"You are pathetic! You are clueless how much this car costs! You will have to toil a hundred years to earn it!" Donovan yelled.

The guys were silent, even though, I bet, they badly wanted to answer him. But the fact that his father was the clinic's boss made them restrain their desires. Having finished his monologue filled with insults and curses, Donovan walked into the building. Walking past me, he didn't even consider greetings as something necessary. I responded in the same way.

"What was that?" I addressed guys, approaching them.

"Boomerang. As it was coming back, it hit the hood of Donovan's car, which was just driving in" Steven answered.

"What an asshole!" Tony blurted out.

"He is!" Steve echoed his mate, taking a sunflower seed out of his pocket and putting it in his mouth. A second later he spat out the husks.

"You said "an asshole"," I looked at the building, located on the opposite side of the street. Pigeons were sitting on different windowsills of that house.

"Steve, how many sunflower seeds have you got left?" I asked.

"Piles," the guy answered, taking a handful of those out of his pocket and stretched it to me. "Be treated, Simon."

"Thanks" I took them and threw on the hood of Donovan's car.

"What is that meant for?" the guys practically unanimously exclaimed.

"Patience, my friends," I said reassuringly.

Several seconds later pigeons began flocking on top of the hood, flying down from the window sills of the surrounding buildings.

"But what's next? They will eat he seeds and fly away," Anthony was obviously not yet getting there.

"Give you three guesses as to what they will leave behind on the hood after eating," I said and turned away to walk along the street.

The lads finally understood sense of what I had done and laughed.

"Pigeon dung!"

I smiled, but they wouldn't have seen this– I was already some forty feet away from them. I was heading for the Schwarzman building of the New-York Public Library which was to be the place for something that was supposed to be my surprise for Alberta on our mini-anniversary. But first I had to meet with one person who had promised to help me with this – Pitt, a student at the Chemistry department. I arranged the meeting with him on the stairs leading to the entrance of the famous building. When I got there, he was already waiting for me, standing next to the stone lion situated on the North side and listening to the music through giant headphones. He was so absorbed by that that he was making even barely noticeable dance moves in time with the tune he was listening to.

"Hi, Pitt! Is everything ready?" I greeted a guy, whose NY cap was turned on the left side on his head.

"Oh, hello, Simon! I've done it!" Pitt blurted out slightly louder than would have been appropriate. He was obviously still under the effect of music despite taking off his headphones and leaving them hanging on his neck. The sound of music could be heard even there. "And I was nearly caught at the laboratory, so you owe me one!"

"OK," I said joyfully. "Thank you!"

Pitt took a tub filled with liquid out of his pocket and gave it to me. Having wished him good-bye, I took that tube and a brush that I had prepared beforehand to the library building along the familiar route. In spite of the fact that Public Library is not the most popular place with the younger generation, since the Judge prohibited the use of electronic devices to me, I began to frequent it – in fact I visited it almost every day in the past few months.

It seems to me that the prohibition to use computers, smartphones or any other electronic device which would enable one to access the Internet will inevitably lead any young person to realising that reading, – an activity to which people devoted a significant amount of their time in the past, – is grossly underestimated in present days. And it is very simple logic... anyone who wishes to avoid being bored, needs to receive a certain amount of information from the world, every day, and, in fact, the sources are of little importance really. It could be communication with friends, lectures at college, TV, tweets, news on Facebook, googling for interesting information or reading books. The only things that does matter are personal preferences as to the sources and the content of such information.

Of course, receiving information using electronic devices and the World Wide Web is most convenient, because it allows finding all necessary information at any time in any place. Should you enter a dispute with somebody about the validity of a certain fact, it is not necessary to search for the solution in giant paper encyclopedias, for Google is indeed a much faster way; it is not necessary to meet with friends in person in order to find out how they are and what they were doing over the weekend, it could be easily learnt from visiting their Facebook, Instagram or Twitter pages; it is not necessary to wait for news bulletins on TV and devour information that channel editors choose to feed you, the Internet could provide the whole spectrum of events in just one click; personal presence in auditorium is no longer really necessary in order to study, almost any recourse could be found on the World Wide Web; there is no longer any need to go to the library to find and read a book, because it is way more convenient to get an electronic version of that book, which you can instantly start reading no matter where you are.

But not all books have electronic versions and not every traditional form of communication can be replaced with the digital one. Although I didn't really enjoy using the giant paper encyclopedia instead of Google; communicating with friends in person only; watching news on TV and learning merely in class, but as I was a hacker who had been prohibited from using the Internet and didn't have that many options, one thing I had become fond of was reading paper books available at NYPL. I was particularly interested in the ancient ones which were to be found only in the Brook Russell Astor Reading Room. That reading room of the Rare Book Section was the most sensitive site in the entire library, because it was there that the most valuable books and manuscripts, photos, musical records were kept. The access to it was restricted to those visitors who had undergone the special registration procedure. Moreover, there were a number of further restrictions, like the requirement to use only pencils for notes (and prohibition of ink) and prohibition to bring one's own paper. Certainly, these measures were easy to explain due to the high value of books, some of which were published several centuries ago. All this rules, as a matter of fact, were directed to interdiction of any inadequate using of them, except resolved one – reading.

But ancient books are worth that inconvenience. Opening them might only be compared to touching history. Their texture, dust which has formed because nobody has opened them for a long time, and even their characteristic smell – all of it made inexpressible feelings, which I was pretty keen on. Once, having received an ancient copy of one book, I got an idea how to immortalize our love with Alberta and make this my present for our mini-anniversary.

And on July 11 I went there in order to execute my plan. All that I needed for that was with me, and all that was left to it only to take the book, escaping the librarian supervision for a few minutes. And that wasn't difficult, because the library appeared to be the place where I found not only books which never refused to keep me company and helped to while away any free time I had, but also people with whom it was easy to get acquainted and in some cases even to become friends. Moreover, the fact that I was perhaps the only young guy who daily visited the library, becoming a common sight for the staff, had done the trick – I was easily recognisable. So on my way to the reading hall I again and again greeted different employees of the library with whom I had come to be on rather good terms by that time.

It was impossible to enter the reading room of the Rare Book Section without meeting Ronald, the security officer. That big twenty two year-old guy, whose excessive weight was, as he liked to say, compensated by the uniform, was sitting on a very high chair near the entrance door. He faithfully supervised the abidance by the rules on the part of the visitors to that special place. Anything forbidden, like ink, was not to be brought inside and anything valuable, like books dating back several centuries, was not to be taken out. But I personally had been beyond suspicion in his eyes since I once asked him whether Yankees, whose fan he was, had won the last game.

As I was entering the room, I almost collided with Raul, an elderly cleaner who was washing the floor. I asked him what his daughter drew by water color on that time and smiled perusing the picture which he produced out of his pocket. Then I came up to the desk which was made up of several sections forming almost a finished circle. In the centre of that "circle" librarian Marley, a woman of thirty something, whose pink hair contrasted with her conservative outfit was sitting on a rotating chair. I had been acquainted with her for several months now.

I put my library card on her desk and, following the regular small talk in the form of inquiring whether she and her husband had that I had visited the French restaurant recommended several days ago (which had been advised to me by Pierre), I asked her to give me the same book she gave me last time. She got up, left the "table-circle" and went off in search of the book I requested.

The book that I needed was sitting on one of racks, which filled all walls of the room, forming two quasi floors – levels. The first level was separated from the second by a "balcony" stretching for the entire length of the racks. The stairs led to this second quasi floor. The stair railings smoothly flowed into the "balcony" balustrade on which small wooden suspended outwards "tables" were hung over space of bottom level. There were comparable to those used for bringing a coffee to bed. Entrance to the stairs, as rack of the first level, was separated from the rest space of room, filled by the tables for reading, by handrails. The tables were paired, one opposite to another, and between them situated big lamps.

Marley crossed the room and went up onto the "second" level. There, verifying the rack numbers with some paper in her hand, she found the necessary one and got the book out of it. I watched her movements, making a mental note of everything she did. Then Marley returned by the same route and handed the book over to me. I thanked her and settled with the book behind the table which stood the furthest from the librarian's desk.

I looked around to make sure nobody was watching me – Marley was texting, the people in the reading room were absorbed in their reading. So I was free to do anything I wanted.

It didn't take long to realise my intentions to do something that was supposed to be a surprise for Alberta. I had been reading for several hours, partly in order not to arouse suspicions with my unusually brief visit, partly because I really liked the book. I also needed to talk to Marley about my tomorrow's date there, because I was unable to take my surprise out of the Brook Russell Astor Reading Room. But for that kind of talks it was necessary to wait until all other people left that place. An opportunity only presented itself when the clock on the librarian's desk showed 5.30 pm, which meant that the room was going to close in fifteen minutes. The only remaining visitor, apart from myself, handed over his book to Marley and went out.

A minute later I also got up and came up to the librarian.

"Here is the book I took," I said putting it on her desk.

"OK... Simon and how it is? Do you like it?"

"Of course, Shakespeare is Shakespeare!" I put my hands on the table and bent forward slightly. "Marley, are you working tomorrow?"

"Yeah, Simon, you know, I am here every day. Why?" the librarian replied, taking the book and making a note on its return in her papers. A moment later, having added with a laugh, "Do you meant to invite me on a date after work?"

"I would love to," I laughed too. "Even wouldn't wait until the end of your business day and would arrange a date right here a four p. m.!"

"I would accept it for sure," she said, still smiling. "If only I was younger and unmarried!"

"Well, you don't leave me a choice! I am bound then to invite somebody else here, otherwise I will have to change my plans to make a date, but I don't want to!" I stopped laughing and said this in rather serious tone of voice, trying to catch her attention.

"What?" she giggled for several more seconds, until she realised that I was no longer kidding. "Simon, are you serious?"

"Never been more serious!" I answered.

Marley laughed again and then said, "What do all of you find in this place? There are some halls in this building that are way more beautiful! "

"What do you mean?" I wondered.

"You are not the first who wants to use Brook Russell Astor Reading Room for romantic purposes. Some guy even proposed to his girl there." the woman smiled and added, "So, how can I help you? Do you want me to register access for your girlfriend? It is not a big deal, let's fill out the questionnaire, and by tomorrow everything will be alright! "

"I've already done it, here it is!" I took out of an inset pocket of my jacket a piece of paper folded in two and gave it to her. "But, honestly, I also need this room to be empty tomorrow. I don't want anybody to be here, except me and her"

"Simon, that is impossible!" Marley's smile disappeared from her face. "I am obliged to keep the reading room open during the working hours between10 am and 5.45 pm!"

"I am not asking you to lock the doors of this place for a whole day! Only to finish your work a bit early– slightly before 4.45 pm – at, say, four o' clock!"

"Simon, if I close the room on my own decision without serious reason, I will be in big trouble! To do this I need a permission from the library director, and he won't give it for the sake of a date! Not for the Brook Russell Astor Reading Room at least! But you could try talking to him yourself," the woman replied, her intonation clearly implying "it-is-not-going-to-happen". "Simon, you know how strict the rules are in this room!"

"But if you close the access here because of some technical failure? For example, because of electricity black-out?" Rules... hackers are meant to break them.

"But this has never happened since I started working here!" the librarian answered hastily, but, realizing almost instantly that this was a hint, she added, "But, you know, electricity is very important – illumination, computer database...Theoretically speaking, if electricity went off at four pm sharp, I would call the electrician who wouldn't come until the next morning, therefore I would lock the reading room."

"OK, I'll fix everything," I gave her a wink.

I came up to one of the rear reading tables and began to unscrew the bulb from the lighting device standing on it.

Marley watched me doing this for a couple of seconds, then said, "Simon, if you just want to remove all bulbs, turning by that the light off, I think, you plan won't work!"

"I don't need all the bulbs. One would suffice, tomorrow I will return it," I put it into of the pocket of my jacket and headed for the door.

"By, Marley!" I said leaving the room.

"See you tomorrow, Simon!" the woman uttered in a voice that was anything but optimistic. "But if something goes wrong, I won't let you in anymore!"

"Don't forget to bring a flashlight!" I said and disappeared behind the door.

I also needed to make a deal with security service officer Ronald, but as far as I had a key to his soul (I knew he was a big fan of Yankees), it wasn't hard.

"Enough reading for today, Simon?" he was the first to address.

"Yeah!" I answered. "Ronald, I have two tickets for the Yankees game this week.Would you like to go with your girlfriend?"

I took two tickets out of an inset pocket and handed them to the guy.

"Are you serious? It would be awesome!" he blurted out excited, jumping out his armchair and grabbing the tickets, but a second later he recollected himself, "Simon, why aren't you going yourself?"

"You know, I am not a baseball fan, I prefer books..."

"Thanks, mate!" Ronald said and hugged me. "If I can help you with anything, remember that I'm always there for you!"

"Frankly speaking, you could help me!" I said thoughtfully. "As I already said, I like books and that is why I want to arrange a date here, in Brook Russell Reading Room."

"A date? Here? Simon, that is not a problem! You know, one guy proposed to his girlfriend in this reading room!" Ronald laughed.

"Marley has already mentioned," I smiled. "So I can count on you tomorrow!"

"Sure, Simon!"

"OK, see ya!"

"Yankees!!!" he yelled, raising his hands with the tickets in them.

I didn't go back to the clinic because it was too late. So I went home. In my room I fiddled with the bulb – it took a few simple manipulations to have it transformed into a device causing a short circuit in the electrical network to which it was connected. Because of this, twisting that bulb in the switched on lamp was supposed to entail operation of a safety lock on electro panel board, disconnecting electricity in the whole reading room. And, the most important part of that, electricity supply may not be reestablished, while the bulb was in its socket, because the whole chain "short circuit – operation of safety lock" was designed to repeat permanently. Moreover, only professional electrician could guess that the problem was in the bulb and it wouldn't cause any suspicious – just fused bulb.

### Chapter V

### *****

"Alright, if you didn't communicate with anyone else on July 11th, then let's discuss Tuesday, July 12th. What happened to you on that day?" The lawyer asked, and then added, "As I understand it, you didn't visit the clinic..."

"You're right," I confirmed. "It was our mini-anniversary – six months since Alberta and I began dating. Seeing that this day meant so much to us, we decided to spend at least a little time together. But, since her parents were around, we weren't able to meet out in the open. So we chose the only possible moment, when nobody was watching after her. Well, I mean, the time when the person whom I could trust looked after her...when she had consultations with Samantha."

### *****

I went to the library in order to settle the last details of my plan. I entered the building; went to the second floor; greeted Ronald, not forgetting to wink to him; went into Room 328 – the library's Rare Books Reading Room; said "Hi" to Marley; sat down at the table next to the lamp that I removed the bulb from the previous day. Then I took a slightly more "modernized" bulb from my pocket, installed it, and pushed the "on" button. The lights went out in the room instantly, and everyone was sitting in darkness. My plan worked out perfectly, but I was the only one happy about it. The rumble of visitors' discontent spread throughout the room. A beam of light from the librarian's desk shot across the room, causing fancifully shadows to appear on the walls.

"Everyone, please stay calm! The Reading Room will be temporarily shut down for technical reasons. I ask everyone to return the literature you have taken out to me. I will shine your way to the exit with the flashlight," the woman sternly ordered.

The Reading Room visitors walked towards Marley with their things, since continuing to read in the dark was pointless. I waited until everyone had left.

A few minutes later, the silhouettes of two men appeared in the room. It seemed that the fist to come was the library Director, who was holding a flashlight. His steps were very frequent and quick. The second man was a security officer for the division – my friend Ronald. He followed the first man for several feet.

"Mrs Walker, what happened here?" The director asked, approaching Marley.

"The electricity shut off, so I decided to close the Reading Room!"

"Just give us a few minutes. We need to check everything out!" The man explained, examining the room, illuminated it with a beam of blinding light. Then he went back out of the room, addressing Ronald, "Mr Philips, help Mrs Johnson collect all the books. After all, someone could use such darkness to their advantage!"

I assumed that the director would try to return the switch of the safety lock in the fuse box to initial position to restore the power supply in the room. And my assumption proved true a few minutes later, when the lights switched back on for a second, but then instantly turned off again – the bulb was doing its job.

A minute later the Director returned to the room.

"I've called an electrician, but he won't be able to come until tomorrow. So, you've made the right decision for today – to close the Reading Room," he acknowledged, addressing Marley, and exited, having left his flashlight with the security officer.

I waited for ten minutes, while all the visitors returned their books and until nobody remained except me, the librarian and Ronald. Then I came up to Marley.

"And you said that it was impossible!" I exclaimed.

"What? You're the one behind all of this?" Ronald was surprised, shining his light on me.

"Believe it or not..." I smiled.

"What now?" the librarian inquired.

"Now I will go get my girlfriend and we will have a date here. And you're going to help me make it happen!" I commanded demonstratively. "You, Ronald, take up position in front of that door; no one can come in and disturb us!"

"Yes, sir!" He smiled.

"And you, Marley, get the music ready!" I commanded.

"Music?" She was shocked. "I thought you'd ask me to bring the romance novel you were reading yesterday!"

"I'll go get it myself. I remember which rack you took it from!" I responded confidently. "So you just need to provide background music!"

"But the only permitted way of listening to music here is through ear-phones!" Marley instinctively attempted to adhere to the library's rules.

"Today is an exception!" I said.

"But there is no power supply in the room!" The librarian continued to look for ways to thwart my plan.

"Right. But what I want you to do doesn't require electricity. Take a vinyl record and put it on the gramophone, and you can power it by winding its motor handle." I knew that this manuscript division, which also served as a reading room, held a giant collection of records and the old, vintage Columbia Grafonola record player.

"Simon! You're driving me crazy!" Marley sighed in frustration. "Well, what record do you want to hear?"

"The song 'Your Love is King', from Sade's album 'Diamond Life'," I responded, and then headed for the exit to meet Berry. "And hurry up, we'll be here soon!"

Having left the building, I began to wait near the library steps. At this moment, Alberta was running slightly late. I wouldn't have noticed, except I was worried that her parents would somehow ruin the whole thing. Bearing in mind that she liked very much to share information about her personal life on social networking websites, they could have found out that July 12th was the day when their daughter and I began to date. If they found this out, they would surely crack down on her plans.

But my worries vanished when I finally saw Alberta, hopping out of a taxi parked nearby. She headed right over to me. Berry looked fantastic. Instead of walking towards her, and thus closing the distance between us, I remained still, admiring her beauty for a few more seconds. She was wearing a white short top, which just covered her belly-button, a magnificent pink mini-skirt and high heels.

When she was only a few feet from me, I finally made a step towards her and placed my hands on her hips, embracing her.

"Hello, babe," I pressed her body as close as possible to me and lowered my palms just enough to lift her up in the air and twirl.

"Simon, stop!" Alberta reproached me with joyful indignation.

But I stopped only when I realized that, as I was using her bottom as a support, I unknowingly lifted her skirt up, allowing the surrounding people to see more than they had bargained for. Having stopped the twirling, I put her on the ground, moved my hands to her waist and kissed her on the cheek. Then, we turned towards the Schwartzman Library. Clutching Berry with my left hand, I began leading her inside.

Alberta glanced forward and, having noticed a long set of steps before us, asked, "Are we going to the library?"

"You are a clever girl!" I smiled in response.

"And you are a very unpredictable boy! Berry responded a bit perplexed. "What we are going to do there? I thought we were just supposed to meet here and then go somewhere else... I mean... to some other place."

"I am pretty confident that you won't be disappointed!"

We climbed the steps, passed through the portico, which comprised three frontal and two internal side arches forming a simple labyrinth. Then we entered the building. I held her hand, while we were walking the route familiar to me, but unknown to her. I wanted to share with her all the emotions that the inexpressible atmosphere of the old place stirred up in me. And I'm not talking about the gorgeous interiors, photos of which you can find on the Internet. I meant the building's inimitable character. The Schwarzman building itself can be definitely considered among the most valuable treasures of the NYPL heritage.

"I must confess, I'm a little embarrassed. I've never been here before," Berry whispered.

Soon we stood before the entrance to Room 328, which Ronald was guarding. He greeted us with smile and swung open the door, extending me his flashlight.

"Good morning, young lady!" He addressed Berry.

"Hello!" she replied.

"Thank you, Ronald," I said, taking the flashlight.

"Simon, why is it so dark in this room?" Alberta asked, having seen from behind the door that it was pitch black inside.

"Don't be afraid!" I calmed her down and led her inside, lighting the way with the flashlight.

As soon as Ronald closed the door behind us, Marley started the music. Alberta shuddered slightly, as she obviously hadn't expected that there was somebody else out there in the dark.

"Thanks, Marley!" I revealed her with the beam of light, showing Berry that everything was under control.

The librarian showed "OK."

The sounds of romantic music played throughout the room. Berry finally calmed down and began to relax.

"Do you like it?" I asked her.

"It's wonderful!"

After making sure that everything was working properly, Marley left us to ourselves, which was evidenced by the soft clap of the door shutting.

I illuminated the way, leading Berry through the room up to the second level. Finding ourselves in the lofted area, I brought her to the exact rack, from which Marley took the book yesterday.

"Follow my hands," I instructed, passed her the flashlight.

She began directing the beam of light according to my movements.

"Here it is!" I exclaimed, having found the book I was looking for. I turned around towards the handrail, on which one of the wooden, suspended little "tables" was hung. Berry also turned, illuminating the book and my hands.

"Simon, what is this book for?" Alberta wondered, trying to make out the ancient leather cover and the compressed, faded sheets.

"It's 'Romeo and Juliette' by Shakespeare, the oldest publication of this play and one of the oldest books in the whole New York Public Library – it was published at the end of sixteen century. It's unique," I answered, having put it on the suspended table, hanging over the opening above the lower level.

"Will you read for me?"

"No, I want to show you something" I said, opening the first page in the middle, where the book title was written and just slightly above the author's name. The bottom part of the page was empty.

"Switch off the light!" I asked, and Berry immediately obliged. We plunged again into darkness. I took a lighter from my jeans pocket, lit it, and brought it near the bottom of page, so close that the flame almost touched the paper.

"Simon, what are you doing!?" Alberta reacted, her voice expressing notes of amazement and anger simultaneously.

But I remained persistent, paying no attention to her protest, continuing doing what I had started. A moment later a radiant smile appeared across her face. On the yellowed page, which had begun to be affected by the heat of the fire, a picture appeared – a red heart, containing an inscription inside:

"Alberta and Simon – together forever"

She whispered these words.

"The heart is the symbol of love... people trace that symbol on trees, draw it on asphalt, type it in messages as "<3" and other things for their other half to express their feelings. So, following this tradition, I paint a symbol of our love here, where it will remain saved forever – as long as we will love each other," I vowed tenderly, having moved the lighter away from the book and to the space between our faces, looking straight into her eyes.

"Simon, I love you!" Alberta said, kissed me and added, "Today, in the morning, as I was thinking about our relationship... and that it has been six months since we began dating... I though how wonderful it would be if you had social networking accounts. I mean I wanted you to set your status to "in a relationship with Alberta Martin" on your Facebook page, and push the "like" button under my photos and be angry of compliments-comments my male friends have made..."

"You have male friends?" I interrupted her, feigning my anger jokingly, but then instantly "calming down".

She continued, "But that heart with the inscription that disappeared right went you took the flame away symbolized much more than any publicly expressed status of our being in a relationship, even though only just the two of us know it is there."

We left the book on the suspended table and held hand as we went down to the first level. All the while, Alberta was lighting our pathway. When we neared the librarian's desk, where the music was playing, Berry directed the beam of light to the gramophone, revealing it from the darkness.

"I knew that only a record player could produce such a specific sound!" she said.

"I didn't know that you knew what a gramophone sounded like!" I said amazed. "What happened to your iPod, and where did you learn about gramophones?"

"Dad would listen to his jazz only on an old record player!" She said and laughed. "Unconsciously, I suppose, I begun to distinguish the characteristic traits of such a rare sound as this one!"

Behind the door, the stream of light awaited us, causing our eyes to squint. As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I managed to make out Ronald and Marley, both smiling at us.

"Thanks for the help" I addressed the librarian first. "I left the book in the loft area, take care of it!"

"OK! I'll do it right now," Marley said, disappearing behind the door to the Reading Room, obviously rushing to put the book back in its proper place.

"Thanks, Ronald," I said, addressing the guy in uniform.

"That's what friends are for!" Ronald uttered.

"I think this belongs to you," Berry said, stretching the flashlight towards him.

"Have fun at the game!" I smiled.

"OK!" Ronald smiled too.

We came out of the building to the portico, continuing to walk hand in hand. But Berry escaped from me there and ran to the left trough the internal side arch.

"Come on, Simon, where are you?!" she laughed and, having gracefully turned around, disappeared behind the back wall of the construction.

I followed her. However, I could find Alberta on the portico – she escaped again trough the left front arch and stopped next to the thick and high base of the double columns at the front side of the building, just at the top of the steps. She leaned against it as though I was supposed not to notice her and just pass by. I managed to see her attempt to hide from me, and I appeared in front of her a second later – that labyrinth was too simple to be misled. I put my hands on both sides of her on the wall at the columns base, blocking her escape this time.

"And here is my surprise!" the she said, pulling something wrapped in bright paper out of her purse.

"What is it?" I asked as I took the present.

"Open it and you'll see!" she said excitedly.

I leaned on the wall of the column base near Alberta and tore apart the wrapping paper... to my surprise appearing before me was... a Tetris.

"What? It's awesome! What made you think of this?" I was very happy to have received it as a present.

"I've always wondered, how it possible to live without using modern electronic devices. And I really wanted to somehow help you. So I attentively analysed the court decision and found out that it contains a prohibition on using tools powered by a processor. And, since a Tetris is powered by a microcontroller instead, it's the only electronic entertainment that is not forbidden for you to use... although it's not the most modern!" she admitted.

"It is a wonderful present! Thank you!" I smiled and kissed Berry on the cheek.

I was very amazed. Not so much by the present, because I knew that the Judge's decision contained the phrase "items functioning through the power of a processor" and from the literal interpretation of these words calculators, electronic clocks and Tetrises, which all ran on microcontrollers, despite a certain similarity in nature of "processor" and "microcontroller", didn't fall under interdiction. However I hadn't said that to Alberta, and she personally analysed all the technical and legal subtleties of the court order in order to make me happy on our mini-anniversary – and that was really a joyful thought.

"And how did you come up with the book idea?" She asked.

"Honestly speaking..." I paused for a second. "I don't know, it appeared, when I was reading that book... maybe, I was think of you too much at that moment... Did you enjoy the surprise?"

"I really did! I felt like I was the only girl in the world! I mean, who else on the whole planet is as crazy as you to come up with such a miraculous idea!?" Alberta came near to me and we kissed.

"The only thing that I missed..." she quietly said.

"What?" I took interest.

"I didn't take a photo for Instagram for us to share it with the world!" she smiled. "Now no one will see it!"

"I think someone will..." I said confidently.

"Who?" Berry responded. "Who will ever light up the pages of the ancient and very valuable "Romeo and Juliette" by W. Shakespeare with a lighter in the Rare Book Reading Room at the New York Public Library?"

"Maybe sometimes our children will come here in order to check out the old family legend about how their dad made such an unusual gift to their beautiful mother!" I said, looking straight into Berry's eyes, then smiled and hugged her.

"It so sweet!" she swooned.

"No," I responded quickly and kissed her on her cheek, "You are sweet!"

"Simon!" Alberta began to fret, having looked at the screen of her smart phone. "We have totally lost track of time!"

"And I am happy about that," I answered, not completely understanding her concern.

"But Simon! In just ten minutes my mom will come by the clinic to pick me up, and, if she finds out that I am not there, I will get into big trouble! And, what's even worse is if my parents find out about our secret date they will make sure it doesn't happen again!"

"So, let's hail a cab quickly then," I said and looked down from the top of steps down to the street that ran along the central facade of Schwarzman building – it was packed with cars sitting in it traffic jam. Judging by the fact that those cars were barely moving, it seemed the traffic jam had paralyzed all of Manhattan.

"I think a taxi is not the best option now, considering..." Berry read my mind, "We won't be on time! Even if we try walking, we will need approximately a half-hour to make it to the clinic!"

But it didn't seem as hopeless situation for me.

"Berry! Do you know what my classmates and I use to do on the football field when the coach wasn't watching?" I said, looking into her eyes.

"I don't have the slightest idea..." she confessed in amazement, but a second later smiled, trying to make a joke. "If you want to admit something bad you've done, this isn't the best moment!"

"We held our tournament of knights!"

"What?" She was lost as to where I was going with this.

"One person was the knight, and the other – the horse. The horse clasped the legs of the knight in order to make his position as comfortable and steady as possible. The goal of this symbiosis was to either knock our opponents to the ground, disarm them, or push them out of bounds. Tall and strong guys usually acted played the horses and the short and skinny guys were the equestrians," I explained, sharing with Berry my story from school.

"And how is it supposed to help us in this situation?"

I went down a few steps leaned forward so that my back would be perfectly accessible and convenient enough for Alberta to climb up on.

"So this fast steed will take the petite equestrian the clinic in less than ten minutes!" I turned towards and motioned to her, "Jump on my back!"

"Simon, are you serious?"

"More than ever!" I reassured her.

"Well, I don't see any other choice!" Alberta climbed up on my back, having firmly grasped my neck by her hands, almost strangling me, and squeezing my waist with her legs.

"I can't breathe! Loosen your grip!" I demanded, desperately trying to find some oxygen.

"Sorry!" She obeyed.

"Look at the time now!" I ordered.

"OK," She answered and kissed me on the cheek.

That kiss was a signal for me to take off and I quickly got up to speed – the daily morning jog came in handy. Citizens of New York definitely certainly weren't used to see a guy running at a full speed with a girl on his back. Those ahead of us on the sidewalk were moving out of our way, and some people even tried to snap photo – I could have only imagine what tags they were going to use for those pictures. At first, Alberta was very afraid to fall, but after a few moments, she answering my question "Is everything alright?" by letting go of my neck, thrusting her hands upwards and shouting "Woo hoo!" as the head wind hit her in the face.

I had to stop only once, waiting for a traffic light to change in order to cross a road. But we weren't alone – a lot of people were waited next to us. They quietly glanced at us, trying to hide their curiosity. But as soon as the traffic light turned green, Alberta suddenly screamed like a professional equestrian "Yee-haw!" The crowd burst out with laugh, as did Berry and I.

I ran along, and several minutes later we were at the entrance to the clinic. I put Berry on the ground and turned towards her. "How long did it take?"

"Nine minutes!" she concluded, having glanced at the screen of her smart phone.

"You still have one minute left!"

"I know what we could do at this minute..." she suggested, leaning closer to me. We kissed, and then she whispered, "I never want this date to end".

"Me too," I said, and we kissed again.

A few seconds later, we heard a sound of a car entering the parking lot – it was her mother. Alberta went to meet her and I headed home, because showing my face to Samantha that day would have been extremely dangerous.

### *****

"So, Ms Collins covered for you and Alberta?" Mr Johnson took interest.

"Yeah, she didn't tell anyone what we were up to... neither about me nor about Alberta skipping out on the clinic."

"Ok, I see..." the lawyer said pensively, taking some notes.

"I'm curious...," I said, having noticed just a few hooks marked down on the paper in ink, "you were writing something down during my whole speech. Do the facts, which I told you, have that much significance for the case?"

"I'll tell you my opinion. Some things were really important, but even apart from those facts, I also became aware of your psychological portrait." The lawyer answered. "Your way of thinking, motivation, attitude towards relatives, friends and other people – it has a crucial significance. But, let's get back to those events. So, on twelfth of July you didn't meet Samantha?"

"You are right. I met her on the next day, and she was very angry!"

"Wednesday..."

"Yeah."

### *****

### Chapter VI

"Simon Parker, I think you owe me an explanation!" Samantha sternly began our conversation, just in the way a mother chides their children for being naughty. She had barely even noticed me opening her office door.

"I am guilty and ready for my punishment!" I demonstratively lowered my head, having decided not to try to extricate myself from that situation. Sam hadn't given us up to either Ryan or Berry's parents, and it meant that she wasn't intended to. It was proof of her high level of trust, and I didn't want to deceive that trust by acting unfairly towards her.

"And Alberta had nothing to do with that. She didn't know that you didn't give us permission to skip the clinic," I added.

"Do you understand that this act of yours could have entailed serious consequences, if someone other than me had found out about it?" She went on angrily.

"Yes, I do and I also understand that I can rely on you in any situation..." I smiled.

"Yes, you can!" Either she didn't know whether she was comfortable with me relying on her in that situation or perhaps my smile warmed her heart, but I saw her angry countenance fade. "But I hope it won't happen again!"

Obviously she didn't want to continue this conversation, since couldn't stay mad at me. But she also didn't want to encourage my deviant behaviour with her goodwill. So, the best option was to change the topic. She began sorting some papers lying on her table, as if ignoring me.

I caught this hint and turned to leave her office. But when I opened the door, Samantha suddenly stopped me. I thought that there must have been a significant reason to continue our conversation, and it wasn't going to bode well for me.

"Simon, wait! I want to talk to you about Alberta."

"What do you mean?" That "subject" for discussion slightly scared me.

"I want to talk about your influence on her...," Samantha said, "you mean a lot to Alberta and your words and actions project onto her behaviour, including your strong spirit of rebelliousness. I am not your enemy, Simon, and it is good that you have your own opinion on every subject, and almost no one can sway your opinions or force you to be silent, but... please, don't interfere in my consultation with Alberta about her problem."

"Sam, with all respect, it seems that you overestimate both my influence on Berry and her necessity of consultation for her so-called "dependence on social networking" problem, which, keeping her in mind, seems like total nonsense!" I stopped for a second, considering whether I'd gone too far, and decided to explain, what I said, to soften its blow. I definitely didn't want Samantha to become my enemy.

"Sam, I don't want to assert, that everything you are doing is useless. I mean, in other place, where your help is really necessary, you would be invaluable..., but here, I strongly doubt you are helping! Helping Alberta, this very sociable girl, to spend less time on social networking.... is this your real calling? Or it is just what Ryan orders you to do? I think you know that he just doesn't understand what the social networking websites are or pretends that he doesn't".

"Ok, Simon, and what are social networking sites on your opinion?"

"It is nothing more than means for something, that has always existed – communication. Didn't girls, before the booming development of social networking, spent hours talking to each other on the phone? And even earlier than that, didn't the youth spend all their spare time friends hanging in the streets? Striving to communicate is something has always been prevalent, and it's not just going to disappear in the future... And this desire is especially strong when you are a teenager and socializing occupies the majority of your everyday life. So why do some people like Ryan try to create some negative issue from this particular means for communication, when its roots are based in the constant aspiration to communicate, which has existed a long, long time before the advent of social networking sites? Alberta visits this place only because her parents understand nothing about this subject, and Mr Roberts is taking advantage of the situation. It is typical example of generational conflict. Instead of undertaking the effort to understand what social networking sites are, her father and mother prefer somebody to consult with Alberta, to fix her "problem"..., " I was interrupted by the ring of Samantha's office telephone.

"Simon, it is not so simple" She contended, and picked up the receiver. Sam always said that psychologists must have answered anyone's call, so this time she also did, but I think partly because she didn't have answers for me. So I left her office, as she was talking with somebody. We both needed time to think things over.

Walking along the corridor, I heard Ryan shouting at Jessica in the lobby. Coming closer to the conflict area, I began to distinguish words and understood that the essence of Ryan's ranting was the Skype call that I missed, as I was sitting in for Jessica at the reception desk. Apparently, the call was from the assistant of a very important investor who wanted to check the clinic's work personally and settle the date for that over Skype.

Jessica didn't tell Ryan that I was supposed to answer that call, because it would have changed nothing in his point of view. Jess, according to duty regulations, was obliged not to leave her post nor transfer her responsibilities to anyone else, including me. So, even the fact that I was at the reception desk when the Skype call occurred didn't change the fact that Jessica still was guilty, since she was in violation of her employee's duties.

Having appeared in the lobby, I saw Jess standing at her usual place. Ryan was on the opposite side of reception desk. I couldn't have just walked on by, despite the fact that by interfering I was risking revealing the real reason why I wasn't able to answer that call, since it might have entailed from the conversation. But I felt that I must try to protect her.

"Mister Roberts!" I addressed the clinic's director, "it wasn't her fault – I missed that call!"

"What? How were you involved?" Ryan wondered, having turned his attention from her to me.

"Jessica got a stomach ache and I agreed to take her post until she felt better. But I couldn't answer...."

I lied about how Jess went with the guys to throw the boomerang, because it wasn't justifiable and wouldn't help to exonerate Jessica of her punishment. But "stomach ache" seemed to me as rather "serious" and delicate – it wasn't supposed to entail additional questions, because Ryan could find out that it was a lie.

"Is it the truth?" Ryan asked the girl.

"Yes..." She said softly, understanding, that my story was only partially true.

"And why didn't you tell me that initially?"

"I hesitated" Jessica answered guiltily.

"Nonsense! Next time, find somebody more suitable to sit in for you at the reception!" He shouted, having thrown his hands up in gesture of indignation, and headed for his office, muttering "Asking someone to sit in at the reception desk who can't even use the computer!"

Ryan left the reception area and disappeared into the corridor. My plan worked. The director stopped shouting at Jess and she escaped any punishment. However, despite this, I feared he would tell Jessica about my court order on the non-use of electronic devices, because some of the phrases he was using might have raised questions from Jess. I hoped that she hadn't paid careful attention to his words.

"Thanks!" She said, looking at me.

I smiled in response.

"Simon, why did he say that you can't use a computer?" the girl asked. Despite the stressful situation, Jessica noticed the information which I had preferred to stay secret, and her question forced me to tell another lie.

"You know... I am a dummy in computers! I absolutely can't figure them out! So because of that he said so... " I leaned to her, having put hand on the desk, and smiled.

"Oh, I see," the girl smiled and added playfully, having put her hand on top of mine. "Maybe I could give you some lessons?"

"By all means," I answered coldly, pulling my hand away, "Someway or another..."

I was slightly surprised by her behaviour, because she made advances despite being aware that I had a girlfriend. Probably, her behaviour was a consequence of my interceding on her behalf, and that made me seem like no less than a knight in shining armour rescuing his damsel in distress. However, my heart completely belonged to another girl, and we were supposed to meet up very soon.

Alberta visited consultation in clinic three times a week – in the morning on Mondays, in the evening on Tuesdays and at noon on Wednesday. It was Wednesday that day, and it meant that I wouldn't have another opportunity to her until the next week. Knowing this, I badly wanted to spend several minutes with her before and after visit to Samantha's office. But until she arrived at the clinic, I had to wait several hours while I was working.

"Jess, unlock the archive room for me!" I asked, changing the subject of conversation after it had become too awkward. Jessica, as the receptionist, held the keys to all rooms, including the archive, and always opened and closed the door for me.

On days when Sam didn't give me a special assignment, I had to sort the archival documents. It wasn't anything too difficult, involving the simple unpacking of boxes that remained after clinic's move to a brand new building from the old place, taking different papers and books from them and placing them on shelves according to a specific classification – type, data and so on... Sometimes it was even interesting – I came across stuff on psychology, which I always read. The judge prohibited my interest in hacking, but she, having herself chosen the place for me to carry out my community service, didn't know that mind reading is an integral part of hacking. And given that I worked alone in the room and had no time limits for finishing my work, I could have plunged into it completely, without being distracted. So I liked that symbiosis of the physical and mental work. I learned a lot about psychology in the archive room, but mostly found theoretical proof for things that I myself had done earlier instinctively.

It took time, but I also had special motivation not to rush. Right after finishing assorting the general archive, I had to begin sorting Ryan's personal archive, which was lying in his office. It also included consulting him on transferring old card files into digital form. So I was supposed to work with him a considerable amount of time, and I didn't want to make this time come any sooner.

"Let's go, Simon!" she said, taking a bunch of keys from somewhere off the table. Then she went to the corridor, at the end of which was the angular room of archive. I followed her at a distance of several feet, having intentionally lagged behind so as not to provoke any conversation. When Jessica reached the place, she opened the door.

"Oh, and we saw you yesterday!" Jess smiled, standing at the doorway.

"What?"

"When Alberta rode piggyback on you to the clinic's entrance yesterday... " she laughed, "I, Steve, and Anthony – we saw it... and it made our day!"

"I am glad" I entered and she left, leaving the door wide open.

There I was, among a heap of boxes, lying next to one another, and never-ending shelves. The room was big, but despite the cold atmosphere of the giant room, it was it was very hot and humid inside. The ceiling air conditioner flaps, which were meant to close the output aperture for air when the cooling air device was switched off, for some reason didn't open, when it was powered up. I had told Ryan several times that it was necessary to call maintenance to fix the problem, but he didn't paid attention to these words, obviously not caring about the comfort of my working conditions. I could do it by myself. For a person who had been studying how hardware works for years, it was rather easy to figure out the problem in the air conditioner system. But Mr Roberts prohibited me from doing so. Probably, he thought that it would somehow violate the court order... it was obviously the wrong opinion, unless I missed something and conditioners started using the Internet to function.

I began doing my job and, bearing in mind that nobody was supposed to come to archive, took off my T-shirt, exposing my torso in hopes that it would help cool me off. As usual, I wondered what was awaiting me in the next box. But at that moment, I would never have guessed that I would find the proof to back up all my thoughts about Ryan.

During my archive sorting, I had found a lot of different things that I probably wasn't supposed to see, including information about the clinic's employees, about its clients, even financial data. And if I found it in the boxes my job was either putting it on shelves in the room, if it belonged there, or asking Mr Roberts what I should do with it, if I was in doubt. And my big discovery that day definitely raised some doubts.

As always, I opened the box, but I didn't see inside of it books, journals, files or folders, like I was used to. It was filled with shredded waste paper, and it was definitely not supposed to be sorted but to be thrown out as garbage. The loader must have made a mistake, putting that box with others, as often happens during moving. I wanted to correct that mistake, but then I noticed one paper, which for some reason remained untouched by the shredder.

Having read it, I became even more convinced that Ryan was a hypocrite. The paper was a report from the annual stockholders meeting of Facebook Inc., and it was addressed to Mr Roberts from his broker. I was shocked. This person, who was a major enemy of social networking websites and blamed its influence on the youth in every possible manner, appeared to be the "owner" of a small part of it. On the other side it was pretty logical. Smart psychologist such as Ryan couldn't have overlooked the potential of social networking platforms and as far as it might have brought him money, he definitively was in the game. But the question arose as to why, while running the clinic played for the other team at the same time? The answer was also rather logical... because it was... profitable. And maybe he, too, took the advice to diversify his investment.

It was very undermining evidence against Ryan, and he definitely didn't want anyone to know about it. His marketing strategy for the clinic, including blaming social networking, which was meant to persuade investors that their money was involved in a flourishing business with great potential, looked rather different if one considered that Ryan preferred investing his own money into Facebook Inc. In order to hide his own identity, Mr Roberts held his stake through a broker, who was his financial intermediary. But the paper, revealing the truth, somehow had avoided the shredder and now appeared in my hands.

I could have used that paper to assault Mr Robert's reputation, but it wouldn't have destroyed him... no, not such a slippery person. And, honestly, it was too easy to get. I am a hacker, not a thief. Hackers don't steal information, we conquer it by overcoming barriers. The important part was that I appeared to be right in every single word I said about Ryan Roberts, and at that moment nothing else mattered to me. So I put the papers back in the box.

I heard Alberta's voice from behind.

"Knock, knock!" she greeted me, standing in the doorway. I looked at her and smiled. Berry came inside the room and jumped into my arms.

"Jess told me where I could find you!"

"And how long have you been standing here?"

"Enough to estimate your relief" She leaned back a bit to look me over, and put her hands on my six-pack. "Simon, you should go around more without a T-Shirt!"

"I'll consider that," I playfully replied and took Berry's shoulders close to me to kiss her.

"Simon, I have to go to Sam now," Alberta wriggled from my embrace. "I came only to tell you that my mum won't pick up me after my consultation, so this means you can walk me home."

"Awesome!" I said, unable to restrain my smile.

"Maybe you'll even get me home on your back like yesterday," She laughed, as she was leaving the room.

I also laughed. "I will wait for you in the lobby!"

Having sorted documents for one more hour, the exact duration of Alberta's visit with Samantha, I put my T-shirt back on and went through the corridor to the lobby.

"Hey, Jess!" I addressed the girl, sitting at her post. "Lock the door to the archive room, I'm done for today."

I don't think any unwarranted eyes could have seen me and Alberta leaving the building together. Jess took the keys and disappeared down the corridor, from which almost Berry sprang almost simultaneously.

"Let's get out of here!?" my girlfriend commanded, having approached me.

"How much time do we have to get you home?"

"Mum said she would check in on me from our home telephone one hour after the consultation had finished."

"Oh!" It was enough time for my plan to visit one special place with Berry, so I smiled. "Let's go!"

Wonderful weather met us on the street – the sun was shining and a fresh breeze was blowing.

"Where are we going?" she asked, holding my hand.

"To Central park!" I declared. "I want to acquaint you with... one of my friend!"

"With whom?" Berry wondered.

"You'll see," I replied, leaving her guessing.

We walked along very slowly. Possibly just to be together – it was so rare after all, so we weren't trying to hurry and were enjoying every second... Every second of the hour.

"You know, perhaps, we won't see each other until Monday," Berry contemplated distraughtly. "For these reasons, I really want you to have social networking accounts."

"And what would it change?"

"Well... I could watch your life and get to know everything that happening to you even when you are far away!" She answered. "But now, it seems we won't be able to even exchange a few phrases with each other until next week... "

"Right, but I must remind you about my court order..."

"Yeah, yeah...," Berry interrupted me, "... prohibited use of electronic devices as well as the Internet, and if you violate that prohibition you will go to jail! I am just saying that the whole world is against us – CCIA agents, the Judge, my parents. And I don't care about them, our relationship has become even stronger because of all our troubles. But... every time I use social networking platforms I think how it would be nice to share the experience with my boyfriend... I mean, don't you enjoy thinking how awesome that would be! Don't you feel like you are missing something important? The court order has forced you out of modern society, unlinked by networks! It's so cruel! Don't you miss those times when you used the Internet for enjoyment, for hacking and... for life?"

"Berry, social networking sites are good at connecting people, but the only thing that is important for me is the connection I have with you. And I enjoy every moment of that. Now I got only one target for hacking left... and that's your heart..."

Berry smiled.

"By the way, you haven't visited your "grandma" for a long time!" I said.

"You are right! Maybe this will work out again! And we can spend the whole night together!"

"What a wonderful thought!" I smiled.

"Also there is one more possibility for us to meet this week. I didn't want to tell you until I was sure... My father will have a Birthday party on Friday and I am begging Mum to persuade Dad, that he should allow me to invite you there... "

"Oh, thanks a lot! I really want to come to your father's birthday party!" I said, not hiding the sarcasm whatsoever.

"Simon, you shouldn't being so selfish! Their opinion is very important to me, and if Dad agrees to your appearance there, you will have a good chance to change his opinion of you for the better. Promise me, that you will put some effort into this!"

"Ok!" I said begrudgingly.

Berry ran several steps ahead of me, and having turned around, stopped dead in front of me.

"It is not enough, Simon! You must say that you promise! She blocked me so that I couldn't move forward.

I tried to slip her by on the left and on the right, but it was no use.

"You don't leave me a choice then..., I promise!"

"You're the best!" Berry said and, standing on her tiptoes, kissed me.

We appeared in Central park soon after. I stopped by a red, enclosed hot dog stand.

"We need to buy something for the friend I'm about to introduce you to," I smiled.

"OK!" Berry agreed. "I'm really intrigued who that friend might be!"

"Give me a bun, please" I ordered through the small display window, which was covered in pictures of different types of hot dogs, drinks and other stuff with their respective prices. The window was so small that I couldn't even see the guy's face, who was working inside the stand. However, I did see his hands in gloves on the chopping board, where the hot dogs were being cooked.

"What?" the hot-dog guy asked.

"One bun, please," I repeated, and then added just in case, "A bread one!"

"With a hot dog?" the guy didn't understand me.

"Without a hot dog, and just a bread bun!"

"I am selling the buns only together with hot dogs – separate buns aren't on sale," the malicious voice came from the window. "So either take a hot dog or stop holding up the line!"

"Ok, I'll take a sandwich...," I said. "Could I choose the ingredients that I don't want in it? I have an allergy to some of them."

"Of course you can!"

"So, give me a sandwich!"

The seller took a bun, put it on a chopping board, cut through it and prepared to fill it with different components.

"So...," he prompted me to continue.

"Without ketchup and mustard," I began.

"And...," the hot-dog guy's hands remained motionless.

"Don't put any pickles or tomatoes on it."

"Ok!" he said, slightly confused.

"No pepper or onion," I continued. "And no celery salt."

"Right!" came from the window.

"Relish is absolutely unnecessary!" I yelled.

"Well," the hands continued to remain stay idle.

"And no sausage!" I concluded.

Berry couldn't restrain her laughter.

"OK...," the guy said this almost instinctively, while his right hand reached for a sausage, but returned almost instantly. He understood that didn't need one.

"Hey..., but without those ingredients, the sandwich turns out to be just a bun!"

"Alright, I'll take that!" I concluded.

The seller was bound to obey since I paid the full price for a hot dog to receive just a long bread bun. Then we went deep into Central Park and sat down on a bench, where pigeons were flying about.

"I sit down almost every day on this bench after my jog to feed the pigeons," I informed Berry, having taken a small chunk of bread and rolling it into a small ball, "I even started to distinguish someone of them, look..."

I threw that rolled bread ball on the ground at the centre of the flock. All the pigeons, as though somebody gave them the command, rushed and tumbled over each other trying to get to the food as fast as possible. But the first one to eat was one big bird that was using its expanded wings to forcibly part its counterparts in order to get a delicious prize. It was really amazing. He looked like a gladiator, achieving victory by defeating dozens of enemies.

"His name is Flipper!" I uttered and threw one more bread ball, which was conquered by the same pigeon.

"He is a cool guy!" the girl replied, impressed by the spectacle.

"Look, here we go now," I said, hinting with my intonation that the most interesting part was still to come.

I threw several more pieces of bread. Each time Flipper took the piece after fair fights, despite the onslaught of the other starving pigeons. But each time the task was getting harder and harder for him. At one moment it seemed that he was definitively going to give up.

"He is almost ready... now you try," I beckoned, handing the bun over to Berry. As soon as she took it, Flipper flew up and jumped on her hand. None of the other pigeons followed him.

"That's what I like about him! When getting food in fights by a force becoming too tough he uses something that the other pigeons from the flock don't have – his intellect!" I said and embraced Berry as she fed Flipper. "He isn't able to overcome the system infinitely, but he can circumvent it! In some sense he is a hacker, just like me."

"I've never seen a pigeon so close before!" Alberta marvelled, "It's amazing, and he is so cute!"

Flipper broke off pieces of bread using beak and in the same motion ate them. He was a really nice bird.

"Will he be scared, if I take a few photos?" Berry asked, taking up her smartphone in her free hand.

"Try it!" I knew that Berry's mobile device wouldn't disturb the eating pigeon. In fact, Flipper wasn't going to be distracted by anything. "Instagram?"

"Yeah," the girl answered, touching the screen.

"Come towards me," I drew Berry close to my chest, which she, after a second of resistance, lay her head on and relaxed.

"Simon..."

"What, baby?"

"How did you understand, that I... was the right girl for you," she asked.

"By trial-and-error," I laughed.

"Simon!" she shouted at me discontentedly, trying to pry herself from my embrace, but, her efforts were futile as I wouldn't let her. Flipper angrily cooed, trying to balance on Berry's slightly shaking hand.

"Seriously, when I am with you, I don't need anyone else in the whole world... and I feel like this will be forever," I responded sincerely.

"Do you really feel this way?" Berry asked, throwing back her head in order to see my face.

"Really," I whispered, leaning towards her. We kissed.

"Do you know what I like you for?" the girl asked.

"What? My kissing skills?" I smiled.

"Because you are absolutely unpredictable. I don't know what is going to happen the very next moment, and it always make our time together special. Like now... It's not like we are jumping out of an airplane, or climbing Mt Everest, or doing other crazy stuff people for thrills. We are just sitting here in Central Park, which I have visited a thousand of times, and it would be ordinary experience, if you weren't here... You made this visit especial... I don't know how you do such things like finding such an amazing pigeon or arranging a date with a lighter, music and an ancient book only for two of us in the most secure reading room in the NYPL system, and I am always wondering what will come next." she confessed. "And about that kissing... maybe you could give me a little demonstration of your skills now..."

After these words our lips again merged in a kiss, which was interrupted by the happy cooing of a full pigeon. But as soon as we paid attention at him, Flipper flew away.

"I think it's time to go!" I reminded her, and got up off the bench.

"Right!" Alberta ran her finger across the screen of her smartphone in order to check the time and agreed with me.

I led Berry home, but I didn't want to part with her at all. But she had to go... her mother would be calling at any minute. I was been standing at the entrance and watching as she was walking into the building when she turned back, waved to me and disappeared behind the door. After that my attention was suddenly attracted by the noise of a construction zone, which was very close, but, interestingly, remained unnoticed the whole time while my thoughts were absorbed in contemplation of Alberta. It was another proof of Berry's magical influence on me. When she was with me I didn't see, hear or feel anything else in the whole world. And only when she left did I pay attention to the large construction made of iron and concrete, which was supposed to become a new building very soon. It was there the whole time, I had seen it many times on my morning jogs, but only at that moment had I really noticed it – just then, the plan was born in my mind how to send Alberta messages without using any electronic devices.

Up until the moment when her parents prohibited me to date her (when they found out about my hacker and criminal past), I had visited Berry at her home several times. I distinctly remembered the fantastic view of Manhattan out of Alberta's bedroom window and her regrets that the building under construction opposite to it was going to block her view very soon. And by the time I was standing in front of the building area, the unfinished skeleton of the future office building had already considerably outgrown its old neighbour, and the only thing that Alberta could see from her bedroom window was a concrete structure that hadn't even been a glass facade yet. This very fact spawned the idea how I could reverse the situation in my favour. However, my intentions, as with any step-by-step plan, required preliminary preparation.

"Hello! MaxRealEstate Company, this is the Manager, Amanda," a nice voice of a young woman said. "How could I help you?"

"Hello, Amanda! I am Simon Parker, and I am looking for an office space in Manhattan. I know your company has a good place there. I am speaking specifically about the building under construction..." trying to sound as calm and cool as possible. I called from a telephone booth, since landlines were the only permissible way for me to instantly communicate over a long distance.

Judging by the surrounding construction area advertisements, I knew that "MaxRealEstate Company" was an exclusive distributor of office spaces in that building and the easiest way to get inside was to enter together with a realtor. It was necessary for me to collect information about security system, floor plans and dimensions, for my own safety, because I intended to visit that place alone in the evening.

"OK, Mister Parker, let's meet at the facility, and I will show you everything! When can you arrive?" Amanda asked.

"I've already nearby, so I can take a look right now."

"Oh, if you could wait me, I'll be there in thirty minutes!"

"OK, hurry up Amanda, I'm already waiting patiently!" I said confidently.

"Ok, tell me your number and I'll call you when I arrive!"

At that moment, I understood that people nowadays relied on cell phone calls more than on designated places and times for meetings. If I had told Amanda that I didn't have a cell phone, her reaction would be quite predictable – she would have ended the conversation with me. It was during these kinds of moments that I understood the severity of my punishment. Though, on the other hand, if I had been allowed to use such a modern devise as a cell phone for communication, I would have, without any trouble, typed up some made-up text, and send it as an SMS or as a message on any social networking website. However, I calmed down myself by the thought that the implementation of my plan was way more interesting than using any electronic achievement of mankind. I couldn't have explained to Amanda reason, why I didn't have a cell phone, so I told her the digits, which I saw on an advertisement of an apartment rental, hanging inside the phone booth right in front of my face.

"I will try to be there as fast as possible and call you immediately, Mr Parker," the young women said.

"Ok, I'm waiting!" I replied and hung up the phone.

I had to be careful not to overlook Amanda and approach her before she called on the number that I gave her, so that she wouldn't hear the offer to rent an apartment. But it was not an easy task, because there were a lot of people around and almost each girl, who stopped for a minute with a cell phone in hand, seemed to be the one who I was looking for.

"I should have asked what she was wearing..." I thought.

Twenty minutes later, slightly sooner than we arranged, I saw a tall twenty-something girl in a black suit, who might have been Amanda. She looked at the screen of her smartphone, then put it to her ear and repeated these actions again and again. She definitively was confused. I assumed that she was the realtor.

"Amanda?" I addressed her, having come closer.

"That's right...ah... and you?" even more confused look than before spoke for herself – my appearance obviously didn't corresponded to the stereotypes of the typical businessman that she had formed in her mind.

"My name is Simon Parker, we arranged the meeting here!" I pretended not to attach significance to her surprising look. However, it was clear, that the doubts, lodged in her mind, sooner or later would lead to questions, which would either dispel these doubts or end the whole thing. And her decision depended only on the "correctness" of my answers.

"So... let's go," Amanda said, with an astonished tone in her voice.

We went to the fenced territory of the building area.

"Before we take a look, can you tell me which company you represent? What are your requirements for your future company office? After you answer these questions, I can show you the area that best meets your demands," she asked as we passed through the security post.

"I am the founder of an internet start-up, which you will hear about very soon. I need an office for ten workplaces and it must not be lower than the thirty-seventh floor," I answered confidently. I didn't look like the typical businessmen – too young and dressed too casual. Trying to prove the contrary to Amanda was useless. But since I was able to participate in any IT conversation and that this sphere of business was ruled by such young guys as me, the phrase "internet start-up" played towards this stereotype, dispelling any doubts Amanda had concerning my age and the corresponding capability to purchase an office in this building. So she became convinced that she wasn't just wasted her time with me.

We went through security post and came up to the trailer, which was located near constructing building.

"Mr Parker, let's go in!" she nodded obligingly, allowing me to pass first through the door. The space inside the trailer was rather tight, and different pieces of construction clothing were scattered everywhere. A tall man was standing among all the disorder. He stretched two yellow helmets over to us.

"It's for our safety!" Amanda took both helmets and passed one of them to me. "Put it on!"

I looked inside of that helmet and could imagine how many different people had worn it before, however I didn't want to start arguing and obeyed.

Apparently, that trailer served as a locker room for workers, which they visited before and after their day shift, and the characteristic smell attested to this. Although the man, who so kindly gave us helmets, might have been the source of that smell.

We went out into the fresh air and walked towards the future entrance to the building, which at the moment was just a concrete construction. I looked around, trying to remember our route. Amanda was mentioning the different advantages of the facility, but I didn't paid any attention to it, and spoke only when she asked questions. When we were inside, we passed through a hall filled with all sorts of different construction materials – this was the future lobby. The elevator shafts were empty, so we started, by no small effort, to climb up the stairs. We were constantly making way for the workers who were rushing up and down the steps.

"Here we are! As you asked, floor thirty-seven!" Amanda declared as she panted, having verified this by the temporary and inaccurately painted number on the grey column. "Now there are no walls and windows, just concrete construction columns, but this makes it an even better opportunity to customize the office space to your needs! And also, take a look at the wonderful views that can be seen from this floor in almost every direction, except the eastern one."

"Right" I uttered. The realtor was right, the absence of wall allowed one to consider the whole floor as a common space, which opened up New York's panoramas extensively, except from the east, where a building was located, blocking the view. That was Alberta's building and the reason for me being there.

"You also must keep in mind that we offer to our clients several variants of internal furnishing..." Amanda voice echoed across the hall. "Simon, where are you going? It is dangerous..."

I came up close to the edge of the concrete floor, where the glasses was supposed to be installed very soon, not acknowledging Amanda's protests. I was separated from the precipice only by a barrier net, which was fastened between the concrete columns, and appeared to be the best possibility for me to implement my plan. On the thirty-seventh floor of the adjacent building, directly opposite to the place, where I stood, was the window to Alberta's room.

Having gone with Amanda to several other levels in order not to entail any suspicions, I went home to write the text of the message. I found there some impressively large-sized paper, and, having made the outline of the letters in pencil, I painted the empty space inside them in red. I took that self-made poster, a flashlight and sticky tape and hastened to return to the building. I was in a hurry, because Alberta drew the curtains in her room with the approach of darkness, and if I had missed that moment I wouldn't have another chance to bring her back to her window. After all, I even wasn't able to call her using a cell phone.

Before scaling the fenced area, I passed around it one more time, waiting until the stream of workers heading home had ceased. I realized that this was not the most appropriate time for the implementation of my plan, because people still could had been inside and the security guards hadn't dozed off yet – but I had to act.

Having jumped up and grasped the edge of fence, I scaled it and landed on the construction site property. I made several big steps, almost hops, and appeared behind a heap of some construction garbage, which I discerned to be a shelter during my day-walk with Amanda. However, I was supposed to make my way through several dozen feet of open space that still lied before me, and the success of my adventure directly depended on the vigilance of the security guards, whose post was nearby. The situation was aggravated by the rolled-up poster on my back, which was trying to free itself from its fetters of rope. But now was not the time to hesitate, and so I rushed towards the "entrance" to the building.

Having made it inside the future lobby, I hid behind the concrete column and looked around, staying unnoticed. The next challenge was to overcome thirty-seven floors of stairs – the second time that day. Scrambling up to the first several floors in condition of coming darkness was pretty difficult, but, making matters worse, I heard the echoes of conversation. Having understood that if somebody saw me, my plan would have been ruined, I didn't even realize how I overcame the rest of the way up – I was running on a wave of adrenaline.

Standing at the very edge of the thirty-seventh floor from the east side, I looked over at the window of Alberta's room. I was right on time – the curtains were still open, but the light had been already been switched on. However, it was still impossible to make out anything in her room besides vague outlines. I stretched out the poster and fixed it on the barrier net with sticky tape.

It was becoming darker and darker, I hastened to go one floor down to switch on the flashlight, directing the beam of light to the poster. Almost instantaneously, I saw in the outline of my girlfriend in the window. Judging by her frozen pose, I realized, that she received my message.

"Sweet dreams, Alby!"

Her look was more reliable than any delivery notice. Her amazement was replaced by a joyful smile right after she lowered her eyes to the source of the beam of the light and saw me. I waived to her and she waived back. It was one of those simple moments which made up the story of our relationship.

Then I began to leave constructing building, making sure the security guards didn't call the police. I did it smoothly and arrived home soon after.

### *****

"Well, what a very extravagant way of saying "Good night!" to a girl," the lawyer smiled. "As well as dangerous and illegal..."

"Right, it was really extravagant, but I didn't have so many choices. I wanted to give Alberta my attention and she wanted it... she wanted to feel me somehow. But our circumstances didn't allow us to use electronic devices, so I had to invent some non-standard solutions," I said. "As for legality, you know better than I do..."

"No body, no crime!" he laughed. "Go on!"

### *****

### Chapter VII

Next morning, before I went to the clinic, I decided to meet Samantha in Central park. That day, Thursday, the fourteenth of July, was her birthday and, since Sam's route from home passed through the park, it was the best place for me to become the first of her colleagues to personally congratulate her. I sat down on a bench, and waited, feeding a flock of pigeons, amongst them was Flipper. Samantha soon appeared with her shining smile, which proved that she hadn't taken offence at what I'd said the previous day.

"Hello, Simon!" she said, beating me to it.

"Hello, Sam! Happy Birthday!" I exclaimed, taking several steps towards her and, having removed the bulky camera hanging round my neck to make space for her, I gave her a hug.

"Sam could I ask you something?" I said, confusing her with my unexpected question.

"Of course." She couldn't refuse me.

"Could you help me make a gift for you?"

"Help you make a gift for me?" She asked ironically and, not giving me a chance to answer, added. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Almost nothing... let me take some photos of you..." I revealed my mysterious object and produced the camera, at which point she instantly started paying attention.

"I'll give you my consent, as long as a digital camera isn't..." Sam didn't finish her sentence, because I interrupted her, understanding what she meant.

"If you agree, you won't become my accomplice and violate the court order. It's a traditional camera, which uses chemical processes, not electronic!"

"Ok, but don't upload these photos on Facebook and Instagram!" She winked and laughed.

I had great fun spending time with Sam choosing poses and taking photos from different angles, and Central park created a beautiful backdrop. I pretended to be a photographer, she pretended to be a model and we both had a laugh. To be honest, watching Sam playing the fool, I would never have thought it was her thirty-seventh birthday.

When we had finished the photo session, we walked together in the direction of the clinic, although I should have gone a different way to take the film to the laboratory to have it developed and to print a few photographs fit for presentation in the evening. To do this I first needed to take my leave of her. But bearing in mind that I had already had an unauthorized "day off" that week, I waited for the appropriate moment to make my request.

"You know... I'm a little bit nervous about these photos..." Samantha said.

"Why?" I said, showing great interest. "You looked great through the camera lens"

"Yeah, but this excitement about 'How I look in these photos' is absolutely irrelevant now we have digital cameras. I remember in the past, when you first had to take the photo, then take the roll of film to the lab and wait until the photos were printed. And while you were waiting, you didn't know whether the film had been spoiled, or if somebody blinked during shooting, or struck an awkward pose, or something... With digital cameras everything is way easier. You just shoot, look at the screen and everything is crystal clear!" was her answer.

As soon as Samantha finished telling me how long the development process would take, I decided that it was the exactly the right moment for my request.

"I hope you let me be late at the clinic today...hmm... I think I'll probably appear there in the evening," I sort of hinted at the length of time I needed to prepare the gift for her.

"Simon, you're very cheeky!" she said indignantly, but had a smile on her face. "I don't know... maybe..."

"And how many people have already wished you a Happy Birthday?" I asked, showing interest, and interpreting the word "maybe" as permission to change the subject, while she pondered the idea of whether or not to let me appear in the clinic later then usually.

"Loads, honestly! It's been crazy! At midnight my relatives and friends started calling, texting, posting congrats on my social networking pages! I hardly slept last night! But if you need an exact number, let me see...," Samantha joyfully exclaimed and a bit later, remembering something, she added. "Simon, I was trying to count the number of people, who have already congratulated me. But I started thinking about you instead. I mean, how do your friends congratulate you? You don't have a cell phone, or social networking accounts, and it must make you hard to..."

"The old way!" I interrupted her. "Personally, or by calling on a home telephone, or even by sending a postcard. To be honest, at first I used to get very offended that a lot of people I considered to be friends would forget about my birthday. But then I realized, nowadays people only remember the special dates of very close friends and relatives. As far as the rest are concerned, everyone – acquaintances, classmates, colleagues – depends on social networking hits and if they aren't linked with you on the Internet, they won't congratulate you. But there is one big advantage – it's becoming very easy to identify your real friends." I said thoughtfully.

"That's very deep."

When we were approaching our destination, I spotted Steven, Anthony and Jessica hanging out on the other side of the street from the clinic. They didn't notice us.

"What are they doing?" Samantha asked with great interest, addressing me, as she thought, as someone who was really clued up about what young people were into. And it must definitely be a lot of fun, judging by their playful mood, their laughter and their smiling faces.

"I honestly don't know!" I replied.

"Ok. I have a little job for you – try to find out and let me know what you've learnt this evening!" Samantha winked and then went into the clinic. I stayed outside and was very happy that Sam finally gave me enough time (and her permission) to get the film developed and to print the photos. But before I went to the photo lab, I decided to find out what those guys were up to.

Jessica was standing a little way away from the boys, holding a smartphone in her hand and pointing it at Steven. She was obviously filming him. Anthony was standing further away from his friend.

Steve suddenly approached a girl who was passing by, more likely a complete stranger, and addressed her in a loud voice. "Hello! Could I borrow your phone, 'cos mine has run out of battery, and I really need to make a very urgent call!"

The girl was confused for a second, but then said OK and took her phone out of her handbag."

Steve took her phone, dialled the number, waited a few seconds and said "Hey, Anthony, where are you?"

Then Tony, who had sneaked up behind, stood very close and pretending that he was talking to Steve on the phone said in a loud voice, "I'm right here, bro!" Then he took his hand away from his ear and turned back to see his friend. Steven stood in front of the confused girl, and without giving her back her cell phone, he jumped on Tony's back. After having been 'saddled', Tony immediately started rushing to and fro.

I couldn't stop laughing at the thought that these were the guys who had actually seen me dropping Berry off at the entrance to the clinic. Jessica was also laughing while filming the whole thing. The only person, who didn't find it funny, was the girl, who didn't understand what was happening and was madly running after Tony, who was galloping around with Steven on his back holding the phone she had kindly lent him in his hand. Probably the only thought in her mind was getting her phone back from those oafish clowns. However, several seconds later, when the guys stopped, Steve jumped off, handed the phone back and explained that they were making a video for their You Tube channel, and pointed at Jessica, their camera operator. The girl also laughed and exclaimed loudly, "You are crazy!"

Having seen the 'show', I carried on making my way to the photo laboratory. To use this epithet, however, was to glorify the place, because in reality it was a typical room in a student dormitory. The resident in the room was Pitt. He was a fan of traditional photos and considered digital images somewhat inferior, justifying his position with repeated arguments about the accuracy of the colour, the contrast and the sharpness of the image... the most important consideration for me was that he had everything required for developing film.

I went down to the underground and in ten minutes was at my destination. The dormitory building was nondescript and with no distinguishing features from the outside it looked like a giant grey cloth, interrupted only by windows. Inside it was a maze of corridors and doors. I went in, climbed up to the fifth floor, and found my friend's room. I knocked several times, because Pitt rarely took off his headphones, but there was no reply. So I tried the door, which turned out not to be locked.

"Hello, Pitt!" I tried to get the attention of the guy sitting in front of the computer. As I had supposed, he was listening to music. I had to go over to him and gently touched his shoulder with my forefinger. He started in response to this soft touch and turned round.

"Oh, Simon, it's you! Hello!" Pitt took off his headphones and in a state of confusion said. "You scared me! I didn't hear you come in!!"

"The door was unlocked!"

"Again! I always forget..." He got up, walked towards the bed and pulled out a black package from underneath.

"Here it is! Take a look!" he said, showing me the contents. Inside were heaps of wires and some electronic gadgets.

"What's all this?" I showed interest.

"The smart home system!" he exclaimed. "I'm going to install it and I'll be able to operate the whole room from the tablet. I mean the door lock, the curtains, the TV and all the other gadgets, absolutely everything will be controlled..."

"Man, you live in a dormitory", I interrupted him and smiled. "Are you serious?"

"I don't know," he laughed in response. "But it'll be fun. I designed the whole system and the final thing I need to do is encode the app for the tablet. So I need a good computer programmer."

"I'd help you with that, but I'm not allowed to touch electronic devices."

"Oh, yeah, the court order..."

"But you can help me. I need to develop this film and print some photos."

"Well... ok!"

Several minutes later the room was drastically transformed. Tightly-drawn curtains, bottles with chemicals in them, tanks with liquids and two guys working in complete darkness, as though it was a surgical operation – Pitt, the doctor, and me as his assistant. "Chemicals!", "Water", ""Scissors!", "Film canister!", "Film reel", "Developing tank!", "Enlarger", "Photographic paper" – I heard his commands and instantly delivered the stuff he needed. At that moment, the room really started to look like a laboratory, except for the fact that Pitt's belongings were scattered everywhere and we had to either jump over them, or simply kick them in different directions.

It took us several hours of hard, though interesting, leisurely work to get everything done.

"Who's that?" Pitt asked, holding up one of the photos which had been developed.

"Her name's Samantha" I said. "She's my community service supervisor."

"She looks good," he smiled.

Samantha was very photogenic and looked very charming in the photos.

"C'mon, give me that! I need to go!" I said and took the photo from him to add to the rest.

I thanked Pitt for his help and went to the clinic. I got there quickly. I saw Jessica, Steven and Anthony standing together in a tight-knit group in the lobby watching something attentively on the screen of the computer at the reception desk. They were quiet... only the constant clicks of the mouse could be heard. It seemed to me that these guys were pushing the "refresh" button of the browser.

I could only guess that they were counting the video hits on YouTube.

They were so engrossed that they did not even notice me. At the doorway to Sam's office, I heard Steve shouting, "Yeah! One thousand views", confirming what I had imagined, and could hear Tony's and Jessica's happy voices.

"Samantha, Happy Birthday! This is for you!" I congratulated Samantha one more time and gave her the present.

"Thank you!" She took it from my hand. "I was waiting for that!"

"Yeah, feelings already forgotten..." I smiled.

"Simon, they're so cute!" She didn't hide her delight, examining each photo in turn.

"I haven't held real photos in my hand for a long time! It's fantastic!" Sam exclaimed.

"For you to enjoy!" It was so nice, that my present hit the mark.

I stayed at the clinic for some time, sorting out the archive, which was the job I had been assigned, and then went home with the intention of spending the evening there. But my plan was foiled by a telephone call, which I heard because I was in the living-room with my parents. I instantly guessed that the call was for me, because the other members of my family preferred using mobiles to communicate. Although this didn't stop their habit of rushing to pick the phone up, even though the voice on the other end almost always asked for me. We have two telephones in the apartment, both connected to the same line – the first one is in the living-room and the second is in my bedroom. This time Mum had picked up the first one.

"Hello!" She enquired, and for several seconds listened to the person on the line.

"Of course, I could! Simon, this call is for you... from a girl!" Mum addressed me, and put "special" emphasis on the last word.

"I'll take it in my room" I muttered, finding a private place to talk and wishing I had a cell phone, which would be much more convenient for me and spare me such awkward moments.

"I'm good, put the phone down," I ordered my mother, when appeared in my room, plonked myself down on the bed and lifted the receiver to my ear. A second later, I heard a characteristic rustle. "Mum, get off the line...!"

"Hello, honey!" I heard Alberta's voice. "I got good news for you! I mean for both of us!

"I can't wait to hear it!"

"Today I'm going to visit my grandma!" she said. "If you know what I mean!"

"Oh, yeah, I know!" I said gleefully. "Say 'Hi!' to your Granny!"

Alberta laughed. "Where are we going?"

"There's a place I've wanted to take you for a while now!" I answered.

Then I explained where and at what time I would pick her up and hung up. I was in a very good mood, because we would finally manage to spend some time together, without her checking the time on her smartphone every other minute.

I arranged the pick-up point in a rather unusual place.

"Simon!" Berry had turned off the street into a lane, which was a dead end, where I was waiting for her. Without even registering where we were, she ran with abandon into my arms.

That lane was one of those places where nobody dared to venture alone. The walls were covered in graffiti; there were grilles on the windows, and we could not even see a little chink of light through them, although darkness had already fallen; it was absolutely deserted, but the whole scenario did not even hint at the fact, that within several yards there was a busy street where people strolled under the streetlights, restaurants bustled and windows lay wide open.

Alberta wore a black top, tight black jeans and, as always, high heels.

"Simon, what is this place?" She asked after we kissed several times and she had a chance to look around.

"Let's go, I'll show you," I replied and led her right down to the bottom of the lane to an iron door with no sign on it, or any other symbol to help identify the place. Either it didn't need advertising, or the people behind that door didn't wish to have any visitors.

I knocked. Several seconds later the door swung open, making a squeaky noise and a huge man in a dark suit came out. This was the first time I had seen him, but his face seemed familiar to me.

"What do you want?" A growl issued from his mouth, resembling something between a half question and a half threat.

"We're friends of Joshua!" I said.

"Seriously!? And does Joshua know you're here?" He lifted his portable radio set to his lips and turned away from us slightly to make it harder for us to hear him, and boomed loudly, "Hey, Joshua, there's a boy scout here with a baby doll. He said they're your friends, but this is the first time I've laid eyes on them. What should I do?"

While he was talking on the radio, I tried to remember, where I'd met him before.

"He looks like my father!" Berry whispered in my ear.

Hearing this I suddenly realized that he was actually identical to Alberta's Dad, with whom I'd already had several conversations. The similarity, I mean... some of their features were remarkably similar, identical even.

"Yeah!" I nodded.

"Let them in." Through the crackle of the radio, Joshua's instructions could be heard.

"Let's go! But be careful, look down at your feet because there's lots of different shit on the floor..." The man said, grudgingly.

Despite his advice, you could hardly call the invitation friendly. We followed him hand in hand along a dark passageway, illuminated only by a dim toxic-green light. Berry was walking slightly behind me and the further we advanced, the harder she gripped my hand. The man hadn't lied. On the way we constantly collided with all sorts of stuff and we couldn't possibly imagine how it got there. Sometimes it even seemed that somebody had deliberately brought a load of garbage there so as to dissuade any unbidden guest from entering. But what I really didn't expect to see in this storehouse of forgotten objects was a rusty bicycle. And it was not one of those wide delivery bikes, which can so often be seen on the streets. It was a heavy, city bicycle with a long, strong frame, wide handlebars, and a soft, comfortable leather saddle, all of which testified to the handiwork of a master preparing a special order.

"Hey, did somebody ride here on that?" I asked the guy, having dislodged the bike from the wall slightly. But the dust all over my hand told me the question was redundant. It was pretty obvious that nobody had used it for a considerable amount of time.

"I don't know. It's been standing here for a while" The man muttered.

Having negotiated the passageway and gone down several turns of a spiral staircase, we ended up outside a small room with a metal door behind which muffled music could be heard. The man got a bunch of keys from his pocket, opened the door, unleashing a very loud noise and a stream of multi-coloured rays of light. The rhythms and the lights created the atmosphere for a massive crowd of dancers who seemed to merge together into a single performance.

"Go in, I'll close the door behind you!" The heavy following us issued the order and we didn't contradict.

"Come on, Simon, or do you want to go down that passageway again?" Alberta joyfully surrendered. Her lack of confidence completely disappeared and she tried to outdo me, throwing herself with abandon into the crowd who were having so much fun.

"It's a very cool place!" She excitedly exclaimed, "How did you find out about it?"

"My friend's the owner..."

"Hey, Simon!" Joshua bawled, without giving me a chance to finish my sentence. Although his words were drowned out by the loud music, he somehow managed to project his voice a considerable distance. His vocal chords, amazingly, had got used to relaying sounds across the vast space in the club.

"Hello, Joshua!" I shouted, shook his hand and then gave him a hug after he managed to reach me.

"You must be Alberta! I'm Joshua. I helped Simon to search you out and I've heard a lot about you since then!" he introduced himself, all the while looking at Berry and then he addressed me. "We've not seen you for a while! I'm glad you're here! Let's go to my office, its quieter in there and we'll be able to talk!"

Squeezing through the crowd of excited people, and plugging into the atmosphere of carefree fun more and more with every second, Berry unexpectedly stopped.

"Look, that girl, she seems like... wait, no! She is Kim Kardashian!" Alberta squealed, pointing at the woman dancing nearby. "I want to have a photo taken with her. I'll be back soon."

Berry went up to the dark-haired beauty and had a short conversation with her. Several seconds later they gave each other a hug and Alberta took a selfie of this embrace, holding her phone in her outstretched hand.

"And how often do you have celebrities here?" Berry asked Joshua when she got back.

"There are several habitues!" Joshua smiled. "Get a load of that man standing at the DJ desk – it's Tiesto in person!"

We kept on moving, while Alberta was taking photos, capturing the atmosphere all around her. We managed to reach our destination and went into the only room on the second level of the club, which had a view looking out on the rest of the space through a panoramic window. A little, low table and two sofas nestled there. Alberta and I alighted on the first one, which was bigger, and Joshua sat down on the other one, simultaneously giving a prompt order to the waitress to "Bring the best!"

"What is this place? I've never heard of it!" Alberta asked, touching the screen of her smartphone. Being a party lover and an expert in the high life, she was somewhat offended that she knew nothing of the existence of such a cool club in New York. Even her strict parents weren't able to stop Berry from visiting fashionable, and not so fashionable, places. Their strictness did nothing to foster trust between them and their daughter and meant there was a lot of lying. I mean, she would deceive them and tell them stories about visiting Granny, while actually trying to discover some new thrill to share on her social networking pages.

"Actually, it doesn't surprise me! Only a few people know about "the club for Joshua's friends," but that's the charm of this place. We don't have advertisements, posters, flyers or even a webpage. The only reason this place exists is that people love to come here!" Joshua said overconfidently.

"Oh! There's no Wi-Fi or network coverage!" Alberta was indignant about not being able to share photos on Instagram, or get online to tweet.

"Yeah, that's the whole point! Other clubs are delighted when visitors advertise them on the Internet absolutely free of charge. It encourages other people to check those places out... But we have different ideas! The thing that's missing because the premises are in a basement – network coverage – turned out to be our greatest selling point! You see people being carefree and having fun, just like children, with no calls, SMS, Instagram, Twitter and all the other stuff that distracts them." Said Joshua, with a sparkle in his eye. "And, I'll let you into a secret. This concept hasn't only proved its viability, but it's going to be exported elsewhere. Right now I'm negotiating with guys from the West Coast about opening a club like this in L.A."

"Hold on a minute, I think that's inconceivable... It's like pretending all the achievements of modern communications were never invented! I mean, it's like going back to the past! Don't you think that ignoring something the modern generation enjoys would be an oversight? " Alberta argued.

"The modern generation enjoys....? I don't think so. People are people, and their needs are not fashioned exclusively by the generation to which they belong. For example, the desire to communicate. It excited past generations, it exists now and it will exist in the future. And mankind has always, is and will continue to strive to develop technologies which make achieving this desire simpler. Don't you think changes in people's psychology can be measured by the popularity of Instagram? I think our minds remain the same, but smartphones began to support internet connections at such a speed that quickly and conveniently sharing digital photos with friends directly from a mobile device became possible. The rest has remained unchanged – the desire to tell friends where we are, what we eat, who we hang out with, and illustrate our stories with photos. The only difference is that now we can do it armed only with a smartphone." Joshua had proved his point.

"Yeah, and you're also less likely to encounter your parents on Instagram than on Facebook!" Berry smiled. "But why are you resisting technical progress in your club?"

Meanwhile, the waitress came back with food and started serving our table.

"You know, everyone has their own communication limits. And now because of social networking people are bound to get beyond their quotas. Communication has lost its natural boundaries forever, as far as distance is concerned, and the non-stop caring regime, twenty-four hours a day, came into existence! And that's why this club is so enjoyable," said Joshua. "People can shut out all distractions, go back into their 'comfort zone'... and then afterwards plunge into their non-stop regime again!"

"But isn't there something happening in the club called 'communication'?"

"Of course, there is, but within very close circles of people." The guy smiled. "With the people who are physically here. That's what reinstates natural restrictions. In the absence of a connection to the external world, we're able to communicate only with those standing next to us. That's why all the parties in the club are private, only for my friends. And let's be realistic, not so many acquaintances can be made within a night.

"Simon, what do you think of it?" Alberta got tired of arguing with Joshua and decided to involve me.

Joshua grinned. We had previously discussed the Internet in general, and social networking websites in particular, so many times that neither I, nor he, could have recognized whether the thoughts expressed by him in a conversation with Alberta were his own or mine. So he was confident that I would be his ally, but I take that stance with Berry.

"For me, this place isn't special because of where it is," I smiled. "And not because I'm being deprived of all the delights of modern technology either – this has nothing to do with my reasoning. Honestly, I just don't care whether Wi-Fi or network coverage, or carrier pigeons exist or not. The most important thing for me is that the girl I love is near me!"

"Ohh, Simon, that's so sweet!" Berry cried and hugged me.

"Like when I'm with my best friend!" I finished the thought. "It doesn't matter where you are, what is really important is who you're with!"

"Simon, you're right, as always, and that calls for a toast!" Joshua announced with vigour and grabbed his cocktail. "Cheers!"

"And how long have you been involved in the clubbing business?" Alberta asked Joshua.

"Since Simon got my ass out of big trouble!" My friend answered, smiling. "I reconsidered my whole life at that point. Didn't Simon tell you about that?"

"Simon, what haven't you told me?" Alberta turned to me.

I actually hadn't said anything to Berry about the situation which might have landed Joshua in jail, or that instead I ended up being convicted by the court. I hadn't said a word about that, not only to her, but to anybody. It was my opinion helping a friend should be done quietly, and without broadcasting it unnecessarily to the world. Talking about it would have resembled boasting. Though, at that moment, I thought this logic shouldn't be applied vis-a-vis the person I was closest to in the whole world, who wanted to know everything about me. I did, however, decide to share that story with Berry at a more appropriate moment and quickly invented a reason to leave her question unanswered.

"Hey, are we just here to sit around!?" I got up from the sofa and pulled Berry up behind me. "Let's get this party rocking!"

Once we reached the dance floor, we launched into the crowd of people dancing and, hearing the rhythm, started boogying down to the music. Berry danced fantastically that night. Her performance could easily have been viewed as art. We plunged right into dancing together, concentrating only on each other, catching each of our partner's moves and instantly reacting to it with our own body. It was not merely a dance, but much more – a trance, a conversation between two enamoured hearts. At one moment during the dance, Berry gracefully turned her back to me, put my hands on her hips and bending over sharply, and began twerking. It was both surprising and amazing... and I couldn't look away from her as she was doing this. Several seconds later she straightened herself up, continuing to shake her booty, threw her head back slightly to my breast and touching my cheek with her right hand, asked: "Do you like it, baby?"

"I like... YOU!" I answered and kissed her.

We regained consciousness several hours later. I was wearing an unbuttoned shirt. My jacket had disappeared somewhere.

My friend hadn't lied – you could forget about everything in that place.

"Hey, Simon! Let's go out into the air. There's going to be a pyrotechnic display in a minute!" suddenly Joshua appeared blissfully relaxed.

"Let's go!" I echoed, catching sight of Berry, and we both followed him.

On the way to the street our group, which was small at first, quickly absorbed new members who wanted to see the art of the dance and the flames. We left the club by the same passageway we had used to get in, but this time it wasn't absolutely terrifying. It even seemed that all the trash scattered everywhere comforted us. Now in the stream of fresh air, I realized how stuffy the atmosphere was inside. The exhilarating sensations produced by the open air excited my blood again, and the mad guy performing the fantastic show gave us an added adrenaline rush. It seemed like we had the whole night in front of us.

I left Alberta with Joshua, returned to the passageway and got the bicycle, which I had noticed on the way to the club. It was time for it to stop rusting. I rode the bike out to the street and went up to Berry.

"What's this for, Simon?" She was surprised.

"Jump on!" I smiled and made a space for her on the top tube of the bicycle. Without any hesitation she sat down side-saddle and her face appeared right in front of mine. I gripped the handlebars to make sure she didn't fall off. Berry held onto me tightly and I started cycling towards her house, where she was supposed to be back by morning.

"Bye guys!" Joshua faded into the background.

Our mood was always in tune when we spent time together. That night it was affected, on the one hand, by the good time we had experienced, and on the other by having to part company again. So we now began to fooling around and exchanging kisses. Obviously, this was all very awkward riding a bike, but that was only an additional cause to smile. Such trifles could not have bothered us at the moment.

"Berry, don't block the view!" I exclaimed, gaining speed and trying to make out the road. Alberta nuzzled up to me even more tightly than before and had her head on my shoulder. Very rapidly we rushed through the night streets of New York, as fast as we possibly could. She suddenly became curious, however, about what direction we were travelling in and started to turn around to see in front.

"Berry, don't do that!" I shouted, trying to keep my balance.

"Don't do what!?" Alberta smiled mischievously, as she was thinking of something naughty to do, and an instant later she carried out her plan and began tickling me. I couldn't have stopped her, because the bicycle's centre of gravity was strongly displaced by her sitting on the top tube, and if I had released the handlebar, even one hand, it would have meant us falling off.

"Ok, you win! Go on!" As I couldn't stop laughing because of the tickling, I gave in. Berry turned around and grasped the handlebar with two hands, enlacing the palms of her hands above mine, she brushed against me.

"Simon, I want to steer!" She laughed, continuing to make demands.

"Ok." I replied, remembering how she could persuade me to let her have her own way. "You can steer me and I'll steer the bicycle!"

I realized that she couldn't balance the bike by herself with two people riding it. So I continued to hold onto the handlebars, adjusting to her caresses and trying to react sensitively to them. In this way I created the illusion that she was in control. Under Berry's supervision, we advanced several yards, drove to a crossroads and began manoeuvring to the right, but suddenly she looked left, her body lurched and she violently jerked on the handlebars to steer the bike in the same direction.

"Simon, I went the wrong way. We need to go that way!" Berry confessed.

Because of such an abrupt change in the centre of gravity, the bicycle started shaking. I had to make a choice either to stop riding, or to fall off. I chose the first option.

"Berry, what are you doing?!" For some unknown reason I laughed instead of becoming angry, holding the bicycle between my legs. "We almost fell!"

Alberta turned back, threw her leg over the top tube of the bike, put her arms around my neck and clambered up on me by grasping my waist with her legs. So nothing else was supporting her except me and her face was now directly in front of mine.

"But you didn't let us, my gorgeous man!" She whispered in my ear, kissing it and snuggling up close to me. "Let's go!"

I held her against me, sat on the saddle and continued riding. It was pretty hard to keep my balance for the first few feet, as Berry was screaming a lot because the bike was shaking all over the place. But then when I gained speed the shaking ceased and the ride was very smooth. She started kissing me and whispering sweet nothings in my ear. I was smiling and could hardly concentrate on the road and the cycling. Sometimes Alberta threw her head back so she could check out our route and, taking advantage of those moments, I kissed her neck.

With the sunrise, I took Berry home when I had to say goodbye, although I really badly didn't want to. Then I went to my apartment to change my clothes and go jogging, as it was approaching my usual time for jogging.

### Chapter VIII

### *****

"You didn't cancel your morning jog despite the sleepless night?" Mr. Jonson asked.

"That's right!" I answered. There was always some justification for not going jogging – the rain, a snowfall, a sleepless night, or "I'll definitely start from tomorrow". So I preferred to do what I had already decided to do, rather than invent excuses."

"Right! You are very determined," the lawyer said. "So, on the morning of Friday, fifteenth of July, what did you do after jogging?"

*****

I went to the clinic. That day I spent slightly more time with Jessica, talking about some random stuff, such as the weather. But our conversation was interrupted by a call.

"Hello!" Jessica picked up the receiver. "... OK, Miss Collins... OK, I'll tell her... Good bye!"

"Simon, it was Samantha. She said she wasn't going to get here on time!" Jess explained, having seen the quizzical look in my eyes.

"And what's the problem?" I was interest to know. "I think being late the day after your birthday is absolutely normal!"

"Sam's new client, who I showed into her office, is now waiting for her; I didn't forget to ask her to make herself at home. I don't think she'll be happy that her counselor is late for their first meeting," Jessica quickly added. "Sam asked me to play for time somehow! I don't know what to do!?"

"I'll do that!" I said and went to the Sam's office. I realized that it was my turn to help Samantha.

"Good morning!" I said, having gone into the office and seeing the girl sitting there.

A quick onceover seldom allows you to form an impression about somebody and to learn something about them, but I managed to observe several important traits. The girl was just under thirty years old, had a pretty face and was slightly overweight, which she unwittingly emphasized by wearing a wide skirt with frills and a big jacket over a blouse. She obviously wanted to hide some deficiency with these shapeless clothes, but instead she achieved the opposite effect. It seems to me, however, it is inevitable for all of us with our complexes.

I was also very surprised by her behaviour, untypical of a modern person, while she was waiting. I didn't notice a smartphone, or a tablet in her hands. She was just quietly waiting... not checking the news on Facebook, not making a tweet, how she hated being kept waiting, not taking a photo of Freud's book lying on the desk.

"And you are...?" She enquired, unsure of herself, and obviously not expecting to see anybody coming into this office... somebody like me.

"Simon Parker. I'm helping here..." I told her. "Miss Collins is late, so I thought I'd keep you company, unless you don't want me to..."

"You said you're helping here?" She was perplexed.

"Yeah, maybe I could bring you a coffee, tighten a loose bulb... " I joked. "But what I really do better than anybody else is talk when you're waiting for somebody!"

"Oh, in that case you are perfect. I'm Sofia Moore", the girl said, smiling. "To be honest, I felt a little weird being here alone."

"It's because it's your first time. Everybody gets nervous before the first meeting with a psychologist."

"Right!" She nodded.

"But there's absolutely no reason to! Samantha's a nice person, and you'll definitely find a common language!"

"I'm just not used to doing something like this. The whole situation is out of my comfort zone... But... enough about me... so, you're a volunteer?"

"Hm... not exactly!" I answered. "There's a reason for me being here, and it isn't of my own choosing."

"And what's the reason?"

"I prefer it to remain a secret. If I told you everything, you could get the wrong idea about me," I ventured.

"Now I'm intrigued. At least give me a clue!" She begged.

"Let's say, sometimes friendship demands victims." I said, reluctantly.

"Then we have a lot in common. I am also here, in essence, because of friends." Sofia seemed really frank.

"I'm not surprised. Everyone who comes to this clinic is considered to have a problem with friendship – either real or virtual," I replied. "Just the name of this place tells us a lot - "a clinic for curing dependence on social networking."

"I wish that was my problem!" Sofia sighed.

"So you're not here because you spend too much time on social networking?"

"No!"

"To be honest, I thought so, as soon as I came into this office and saw you."

"Really?" She responded, "And what specifically did you see in me?"

"Tell me, did your smartphone run out of battery?" I asked.

"Smartphone?" the girl wondered. "Why you are asking that?"

"I very often see people waiting in the lobby. And all of them use the same thing so they don't get bored – a smartphone or a tablet. Not only that, but they usually get to like spending time on this, that it's very hard to distract them from it – boring waiting problem solved! They definitely prefer exchanging messages with a friend on the Internet to real talking to a stranger (like me, hanging out in the lobby). But, when I came into this office, you weren't using any mobile device and were open to having a conversation with me. This type of behaviour distinguished you from other visitors to this clinic, whose reason for being here is their so-called problem of dependence on social networking. So, something else must have brought you here." I said, "Though maybe your smartphone just ran out of battery?"

"It didn't...," Sofia answered, "And it wasn't a tablet either. And I'm very impressed... you're close to finding out why I'm here."

"Really?" I responded, "In that case, maybe you'll share it with me?"

"Only if you tell me your reason first!" She attached a condition.

"Ok!" said I, "I'm doing community service here a Judge sentenced me to."

"Wow!" Sofia said, "And what was this punishment for?"

"I'm a hacker."

"A hacker!?" The girl said, emotionally. "You said your name's Simon Parker... let me think..."

"Do you know the names of all hackers?" I wondered.

"Yes, I do." Sofia said, proudly. "I work for the Cyber Crime Investigation Agency and I'm familiar with a lot of hackers' names. Apparently, one of my colleagues investigated your case! "

"It was Clark Atwood and the investigation took place more than a year ago."

"Oh, I've heard about him. But I came to the agency, when he'd already retired," The girl told me. "I haven't been working there long."

"So, I told you my secret and now it's your turn! What brought a CCIA agent to the clinic?"

"I don't even know...," Sofia hesitated, "It's kind of personal."

"A deal's a deal!" I said, holding her to the bargain strongly.

"You know, Simon, maybe this is the wrong place for me to be... but I haven't found anywhere else to help solve my problem, because it's closely connected with social networking. First of all, I don't have any real friends. I mean not only on the Internet, but in general. And don't get me wrong, I'm a sociable girl. I have a nice job which keeps me working twenty-four seven. But as it turns out, there's no-one I can call my best friend and, to be honest, I've never had a best friend. This problem just didn't bother me in the past. At school and at college I wasn't very popular, so I preferred studying and speaking with teachers to communicating with people my own age. Then I started my career path... I was working very hard. I thought that everything still lay ahead and that personal life would've damaged my career. But when I finally became the youngest agent at the CCIA, I suddenly realized there was nobody around to share my happiness with."

"And what's social networking got to do with that?"

"Well... I'm not able to solve my problem, because I can't express myself on social networking sites. In real life I'm trying to nurture a reputation as a respectable woman. But anyone I decide to be friends with, like a colleague or any other acquaintance, perceives me based on their opinion of who I am on the Internet. But I'm nobody there... I even wrote my surname with a mistake on my Facebook account so that nobody could find me."

"What for?" I enquired.

"Let's assume, that I'm not hard to find on the Internet. Someone I've just met, like you, becomes interested in my profile and decides to take a closer look at me to find out whether we have much in common or not. Obviously, the best way to do that is by checking my social network accounts. So you would go to my Facebook and Instagram profiles and find out that I don't post photos showing fun times I've had with friends, or visiting cafes on Fridays, hanging out at crazy parties on weekends, romantic dates with a boyfriend... and the only photo I post is a picture of my work place, because what I do all day and all night is work! No personal life! And no one even liked this photo, or commented on it... 'Cos there are no friends. Also you would look at my twitter account and see posts like, "I 'm going to work!", "I'm working!", "I decided to work overtime!" You would instantly form a prejudice against me, something like "She's weird!" The image of a successful woman (the youngest hacker hunter in the whole country!) would instantly disappear and would be replaced by an image of a nerd, as I was back at school. And I don't even want to imagine what my classmates would say, realising that there has been absolutely no changes in my personal life since my school years. I don't want to give ammunition to the gossips. And by the way, that's the reason I've never attended graduate reunions! I feel like I don't fit into the modern world and I really want to find a solution to this problem! It is not about excessive social networking, but its absence." the girl revealed.

"You are not the only person, with a problem like that!" I said thoughtfully, "I call it "a split personality problem" – one real and the other virtual. The one depends on the other. I was faced with this when my social networking accounts were deleted by court order."

"Oh really?" She was surprised. "Although I could have guessed the second half part of your punishment by myself. Hackers seldom receive only community service. I mean, it is more likely, that you are also prohibited from using the Internet, aren't you?"

"You're right!" I nodded.

"So then you're bound to understand my problem being a nobody!"

"You know, I don't. My absence from social networking websites led me to draw completely different conclusions from yours."

"But you said you were faced with the problem of two personalities?" Sofia pointed out.

"Yes, I was, but then I realized that in a modern world differentiation between a virtual and a real personality is senseless. There aren't two people, there's only one, and social networking accounts are the means by which we express ourselves to others. It's called socialization. We are who we are, even on the Internet. And if social networking sites don't suit somebody for some reason, that person is bound to find other ways of self-expression so as not to be excluded from society..." As soon as I said that, the door to the office opened and Samantha ran in.

"I am very, very, very sorry!" Sam quickly apologised, while making her way to her chair, "There's no justification for me being late... I'm so confused..."

"Everything's alright! Your assistant, Simon, kept me company." Sofia calmed her down.

Sam took a look at me, then at her.

"Well... I think Simon will have to go now..." Sam understood that everything was under control muttered something and winked at me as a sign of gratitude.

"Right... I gotta go back to work. Sofia, I hope to see you later..."

"Thanks, Simon! You are a very interesting conversationalist!", said Sofia. "I also hope that we'll continue our conversation..."

I left the office, thinking about the things Miss Moore had told me. I was rather amazed at her candidness. Especially with someone she had just met. It must have been either the effect of the "psychologist's office", or she just hadn't conversed with somebody in an open and frank manner for a while. But I liked her sincerity and thought we might continue our conversation some time. At that moment, I couldn't have supposed, that I would meet her in absolutely different circumstances.

### *****

"Very interesting!" said the lawyer. "It was Sofia Moore, the CCIA agent, who several days later would investigate you, isn't that right?"

"That's right!" I confirmed.

"Do you know, that Agent Moore didn't report anywhere that she had that meeting with you during the investigative process?" Mr. Jonson asked.

"It seems to me that she had her own reasons to be for silent. If Sofia had reported about that to CCIA management, she would have been obliged to either state the gist of our conversation, or to refuse the investigation of the case. She couldn't have agreed to the first option, because of the private nature of our talk, or to the second, because my case promised to yield considerable benefits to her. So she chose not to divulge to anybody that we had a short conversation."

"Do you understand that from a judicial point of view, I could use the fact of that meeting in court as an argument to throw doubt on all the evidence collected by agent Moore against you?"

"I don't want anybody except you to know about that conversation. So, keep silent about it..."

"Even if she mentions it herself..." the lawyer asked.

"Even then..."

"Ok" Mr. Jonson agreed, "Continue... what else happened to you that Friday..."

### *****

There wasn't anything special that day. I spent the whole time working on sorting out the archive. In the evening, Steve and Anthony and I went to the gym and worked out. Then I got home, had dinner with parents, went to my room and started to play Tetris, which Alberta gave me as a present. Suddenly, I heard the home telephone ring.

"Hello, Simon!" I heard the joyful voice of Berry when I picked up the phone.

"Hi, Honey!" I said. "How are you? Did your parents suspect something about 'visiting grandma'?"

"No, they didn't. Everything is alright!" I heard the answer, "And what's more, I got some good news to give you!"

"Ok, I'm waiting..." I replied.

"We can meet again on Sunday evening!"

"Wow...!" I was glad for a second, but my mood instantly changed when I remembered that Berry had told me about her father's birthday that week. "Is your dad involved in any way in that decision?"

"Yeah, we're going to his birthday party. I persuaded him to invite you," I heard over the receiver. Her elated voice testified to the fact that it had been very hard to persuade Mr. Martin I should be there.

"Ok!" I reluctantly agreed.

"The event will be at The Plaza, Fifth Avenue..." Berry started giving me the details, "in the Grand Ballroom. Bear in mind, that there'll be a dress code. For men, it'll be a tuxedo. Everything will start at seven pm."

"How many people will be there?" I showed interest, as I hoped that owing to the large number of guests, Berry and I would be able to disappear into the crowd... avoiding her parents.

"Only friends – four, maybe five hundred people," Alberta answered.

"And how did you manage to put my name on this short list of 'only friends'?" I enquired.

"I made a deal with my dad," She replied. "I agreed that Donovan could be there and father agreed to invite you!"

"Oh... what a deal!" I said with a note of sarcasm in my voice.

"Samantha also will be there. Dad wants to discuss something with her. And Ryan's invited."

"Right" I said. "At least we'll be close to each other!"

"I can't wait!" She said. "And don't forget your promise!"

"Right..."

I didn't want to go. But it was the last chance to repair my relationship with Mr. Martin and make him more comfortable with me dating his daughter. My dates with Berry could last longer and be more regular, despite the fact that the adrenaline rush was stronger when I wasn't supposed to see her.

### *****

"So Mr. Martin overcame his aversion to you and agreed you could be at his birthday party, as long as you agreed that Berry's ex-boyfriend could be at the same place, at the same time." Mr. Jonson was specific.

"Yeah," I answered. "He never stopped trying to rekindle their relationship and was able to endure do a lot to that end. Even put up with me..."

"Ok," replied the lawyer, writing something down. "What came next? Oh, Saturday... "

### *****

On my days off, like that Saturday, I wasn't obliged to work at the clinic. However, I stuck to my routine waking up very early, jogging, taking a shower, having breakfast, and at eight pm I was ready for anything. That day I was supposed to buy a present for Alberta's father. I decided to raise the money for it by selling my 'old' PC. This wasn't just any old machine; it was hand built by myself and my pride and joy – and was a weapon in my hacking activities. I personally selected all the hardware, starting with the motherboard and finishing with the hard disk, and checked that everything was fully compatible. And I achieved maximum efficiency from the whole system, although the PC had never worked badly, but at one particular moment it proved incredibly useful to me...

The computer had been standing in the big open box since it was returned to me from a warehouse where material evidence was stored. The monitor, the system block, the keyboard and the mouse were separately taped up with orange tape and tags which were labelled "mat. evid." and a case number on each. Although I was prosecuted for a crime which was carried out from Joshua's PC, CCIA agents tried to find traces of hacking activity on my personal computer too. But they found nothing. My computer had never contained anything illegal, because the hacking programs were uploaded from special web cloud services, and the codes were written by me personally. They were meant to be used only once from any computer, which I was able to enter using the Internet, and automatically move to another web storage space after use, by means of a special algorithm. I was the only person who knew where these programs could be found and who knew the operative passwords.

After retrieving my computer from the warehouse of material evidence, I wasn't able to use it, because of the prohibition. My parents didn't need it either. So it just lay in the box and took up space in my room. I realized that when I could finally switch the power button on, it would most likely be hopelessly outdated. That is why, and maybe because it was just too hard to look at it every day, I decided to sell the PC to somebody else, who could use it for what is it was designed for. A machine like that shouldn't be left lying in the box.

Before searching for a buyer, I needed to find out how much Sean's present cost, so I could put a price on the computer. I didn't want to do it on my own, so I dialled Pitt's number on my home telephone.

"Hello!" I heard his sleepy voice on the line.

"Hi, Pitt!"

"Simon, is that you?" he wondered.

"That's right!" I confirmed his guess.

"You woke me up!" This time his voice was not only sleepy, but also angry.

"Sorry, bro! I need your help!" I said animatedly. "Let's meet at midday at the vinyl store... you know... that one on Broadway, 'Collibo'!"

"Why there?"

"I need to choose a record!"

"Right... Simon... I forgot again that you can't use the Internet," Pitt said. "You know, in this day and age you can download almost everything..."

"It's not for me. It's for a present for Alberta's dad for his birthday. He likes listening to jazz on his stereo," I interrupted the student.

"Oh... OK. I know nothing about vinyl, but I'll be there... anyway I don't have other staff to do... And it'll be a good place to take a picture for my Instagram." He agreed and hung up.

Several hours later we met.

"Hi!" exclaimed the young man, seeing me cycling towards him. "Cool transport!"

"Thanks!" I acknowledged and stopped the bike sharply just in front of him. "Hello, man!"

After a manly handshake, we went into the store with the old-fashioned store-window, overflowing with random stuff from the past. But inside the premises I saw the exact opposite of what I had expected. Instead of 'racks' of gramophone records, traditional for such places, which would be classified either according to the genre, or the year they were released, and several 'cognoscenti', who always hang out in record stores and are ever ready to discuss any topic related to music, the whole place was strewn with boxes.. Among them the old man was sitting on a chair looking lonely and packing up the vinyl left on the last full rack.

The old man heard us coming in, took a look at me, then at Pitt and asked, "How can I help you young people?"

"We wanted to buy a gramophone record...," I answered. "Is it still possible?"

"You've arrived just in time," the old man smiled, but it was sad smile. "I'm closing the store and you'll be my last customers..."

He gave a deep sigh and added, "If you only knew, how much has happened in this place over almost seventy years working here!"

"Why you are closing it?" Pitt showed interest.

"Nobody wants to listening to vinyl any more... people find, discuss and buy music on the Internet and don't come here... Do you know what our slogan was - 'Collibo', the best place to buy and share!', said the old man sadly, through constant sighs..

"Very nice!" Pitt exclaimed.

"Hah! I remember long queues outside this shop... Everybody asking me for advice, or for help. But now people prefer to ask Google, rather than listen to an old grumbler like me. The income doesn't cover the rent... But why should you listen to me? What you are interested in?"

"Honestly, I hope you'll help us!" I replied.

"Yeah, the courts stopped him from asking Google," Pitt was smiling, almost laughing.

"Shut up!" I took a quick look at my friend. "I need a present for a man who likes listening to jazz on vinyl records..."

"Could you tell me something more specific about his tastes? Jazz is multi-faceted! Maybe you know who sings the music he likes?"

"Unfortunately, this is all the information I have about his hobby!" I sighed.

"Ok, don't worry, I got it... First of all, you need a really rare record, that he hasn't already got in his collection and, secondly, a record that will be to the liking of every jazz fan," the old man hit the nail on the head.

"That's right!" I was amazed by the record dealer's professionalism.

"I have a record like that..." the old man said thoughtfully and went up to one of the boxes, but then sharply changing direction he shouted out, "No, it must be..." The dealer finally went over to another box and immediately began to rummage through it. After a minute's search, the old man exclaimed, "Here we go!", and took the record from the box and, on the cover in big red letters was written, "Hank Mobley".

"It is a legendary album! You can't find this anywhere else... I got it when I was a boy... it was my first deal. I exchanged it with my classmate, Victor Slim. I gave him a Mikey Mantle baseball card, which was a present from my dad... he wanted me to become a baseball player. After the deal was done, I rushed over here to the store. I remember it like it was yesterday. My grandfather was standing behind the counter. I showed him the vinyl... He smiled... He smiled with pride! He was proud of me. Many years ago he told me that it was the moment he decided to transfer the store to me, because he had never met anybody else so keen on music. Even my dad, when he found out about the deal, began giving me vinyl records as presents instead of baseball cards... So, when I was in your age I stood at this counter for the first time. I smiled that day... I smiled with pride! I was proud to be here, to sell vinyl... So many years have passed... I've been waiting for my grandson to grow up and show interest music. I wanted to pass the business on to him. He's only twelve right now. He's a very good boy, but he likes computers way more than gramophone records... Who could have guessed that the album which became my first deal, would also be my last deal? I've received many offers to sell this album, but I've refused all of them, because this was my very first deal. But it doesn't make sense any more. "

"And how much do you want for it...?" Pitt was dying to ask.

"And what you are going to do?" I didn't allow my friend to finish the question. The story of old record dealer touched me and I wanted to try and persuade him not to give up.

The old man sighed. "I devoted all my life to selling good music... I can't do anything else... All these boxes will find a home in my garage. And this album... it's very expensive, but you can take it for free... Records are supposed to bring pleasure to people, instead of being in consigned to oblivion..."

"Why you are giving up and allowing new rules to put you out of business?" I was indignant.

"What do you mean, young man?" The dealer puckered his eyebrows in amazement.

"Have you heard of eBay?" I asked.

The reaction on his face told me he hadn't.

"Ebay.com," Pitt specified.

"Is it something related to... the Internet?"

"Yeah. It is an online site you could sell vinyl records on. They mustn't be consigned to oblivion... or you either! Believe me, you can do business right from your home and use your garage as a warehouse." I said confidently. "And there is one big advantage – no rent!"

"But I don't know how to use the Internet!" The old man was perplexed.

"You could involve your grandson in the business." I smiled. "I am pretty sure he'll help you"

"But I don't even have a computer!" The record dealer had uttered his final convincing argument against the idea.

"You offered to give me this album for free. I refuse... and offer you another deal – an exchange. I'll give you a modern, highly efficient computer for this record. You were right to say that something which brought us so much enjoyment in the past shouldn't be cast into oblivion now..." I said and stretched my hand out to him. "Maybe this album deal will again become the basis of your business?"

The old man's face beamed happiness and he was smiling.

"Deal!" The old man declared and shook my hand.

After explaining to him where he and his grandson could pick up the computer, we left the store with the album. I was very glad that I had managed both to help to the old man and to acquire the present for Sean. But what happened in the store, forced me to think about a lot of things. I took a bike and began pushing it along the street, while Pitt was walking nearby.

"Why you were so kind to that old man?" my friend asked. "You could have taken this album for free!"

"I understand him as nobody does... I've had a very similar experience."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm talking about the court prohibition. I can't use the Internet and I don't have social networking accounts... I'm kind of excluded from all that. Just like that old man. The only difference is, I didn't do it all by myself like he did."

"Right!" said Pitt.

"You know, the Internet can either present you with a new opportunity, or kick you out of the game." I said. "In order to remain afloat that old man must realize that Google won't give the answers by itself... one can find the answers by searching online for information provided by other people who create content to share. And he can be one of them... he can give answers... he can be part of Google. The Internet is all about people. And it is good thing to understand."

"Hey look, there's a place over there where you could wrap your present!" Pitt pointed at the little store situated on the ground floor of one of buildings.

"Right."

We wrapped the album there. Then we had a walkthrough the streets of New York for quite some time and talked about this and that. Several hours later I came home.

### *****

"Well... Sunday... your story almost had reached the day you carried out the act which brought you here." The lawyer reminded me.

"Yeah, you're right, until that act hardly more than twenty four hours had passed. And that time passed like a dream – everything that happened in that time was of crucial importance."

"Ok, so carry on... But try not to miss any details... it's especially important now!"

"Ok."

### *****

### Chapter IX

I began my morning on Sunday slightly confused. I was supposed to attend an event in the evening that was giving me mixed feelings. On the one hand, I wanted to meet Alberta, but on the other, I didn't want to meet her parents. In order to distract myself from these troubling thoughts, I spent the whole day working on my bicycle. I pumped up the tires, greased down all the details and cleaned off the rust. The shining metal horse standing before me was the result of my hard work, and it would later be my personal transport to this evening's event.

So I donned my tuxedo and took off on my trusty bike to the Plaza, one of the most expensive and glamorous places in town, situated directly in the heart of New York, near Central park. It didn't bother me that my style of clothes didn't match my mode of transportation. Although the look of surprise on the face the hotel parking valet said it all, when instead of the "usual" limousine or convertible, he saw a bicycle.

"Make sure you don't scratch it!" I joked, handing him over the bike.

"It's in good hands now, sir," he smiled in response.

The massive doors of the Plaza swung open under the effort of a doorman. Having made my way through the lobby, I came upon the Grand Ballroom, an enormous room with a magnificent interior. Waiters with trays offered glasses with bubbling champagne, weaving their way around the ballroom. Several large ice sculptures amazed those on hand with their crisp detail. The pianist in the corner created a "classical" atmosphere in the background. Two rows of tables with glamorous velvet tablecloths were lined up along the walls.

I looked around, trying to find Berry among the gracefully dressed ladies and their gentlemen in tuxedoes. The majority of the guests crowded in the spacious mingling area in the centre of the room. I thought that the host of the event, along with Alberta, must have been in the centre of that group at the moment. As I walked into the crowd, I saw Samantha and Ryan engaged in a heated debate. A bit later, I finally saw Berry and her parents nearby.

She was wearing a charming tight black short dress, highlighting her beautiful body. I wasn't sure whether Alberta would actually stop on a simple "Hello!" when I approached them or not. We couldn't express our feelings upon greeting each other the way we used to in front of her parents; and by that I mean passionate hugs and kisses. Though, to tell the truth, I couldn't even have told you how I would have reacted at that moment. When I snuck up close enough to hear their voices, it was time that I let them know of my arrival.

"Hello, Alberta... Good evening, Mrs. Martin, Mr. Martin!" I greeted them and experienced that rare moment that occurs in a fraction of a second when a person's reaction is written on their face, expressing their true attitude towards me. It was supposed to happen at that moment, but they managed to stifle an initial outburst and, according to the rules of etiquette, responded cordially.

"Hello, Simon!" Alberta answered. A wide smile instantly appeared on her beautiful face and her eyes began to glisten. I didn't expect any other reaction from Berry. She moved a bit closer to me, but, having realized that kisses and hugs in front of her dad wasn't a good idea, she stopped almost dead in her tracks. Then she looked over to Sean, trying to understand whether he noticed her almost indistinguishable advance towards me. But he didn't... he had his eyes locked on me.

"Hello, Simon," Sean said, as his "compliant" smile replaced a grimace of disappointment, which appeared almost instantly on his face when he first saw me. Obviously Mr. Martin had hoped that I wouldn't have the gall to come to his B-day party.

Alberta's mum managed her own "Hi, Simon." I didn't see any negative reaction on Laura's face, and it must have meant that she either was still comfortable in my presence or that the glass of wine in her hand wasn't her first.

"Happy Birthday, Mr. Martin!" I congratulated Alberta's father, reaching my arms out towards him. "Please accept my modest birthday gift!"

"Thank you, Simon!" he said, mistrustfully examining the packed vinyl from every angle. "What is it?"

"Got to open it to find out! I am pretty confident you'll like it!" I didn't want to kill the element of surprise because I was certain that Sean would love the present.

"Right..." he said thoughtfully, passing the gift over to one of his assistants, who took the package and piled in on a huge heap of gifts in the corner of the Hall.

"How is your community service going, Simon?" Sean grinned. "As I understand, community service is kind of a criminal punishment, right?"

"Dad, stop!" Alberta tried to interrupt the "boys" as they were "being boys".

"It's alright" I told Berry, letting her know that I was able to deal with her father's antics. Moreover, I was expecting this sort of rapport with him, and I also understood that every single word I said could affect his opinion of me. The worst outcome would be for me to use Alberta as a shield from her own father.

"You're right, sir! All I want to do is finish it up and stay out of trouble!" I responded.

Sean's smile demonstrated that he liked that joke.

But I didn't finish.

"It's interesting though... the place where I serve my "criminal punishment" is so nice that some people even take their children to visit it!" I smirked.

Now he was angry.

"Well, what else do you do?" he asked. "Are you planning on going to college?"

"Of course, Mr. Martin, as soon as I have repaid my debt to society." I answered. "In the clinic where I was not the only one to stuck..."

"You know, Simon, when I was your age I played professional football, worked hard and made money... and you, one of today's youth, are doing community service because of a stupid thing you did on the Internet. Was it worth wasting your future on it? Kids nowadays have too much freedom and too little responsibility. You all prefer spending all day every day sitting idly on social networking websites instead of thinking about your future and doing something useful with it!"

While his words were directed at me, he was clearly sending a message to Alberta as well.

"Well, sir, I'm not sitting around playing on social networking websites, but, all the same, I'm not doing anything all that useful either," I objected with the grin.

"That's because you don't heed the older generation's advice! Once, when I was even younger than you..."

"Geesh, here we go again..." Alberta muttered to herself as though she was about to hear the same story for the hundredth time.

"... Once I went hiking with some pals from school instead of going to football practice. What could missing one little practice do to harm my sports career, right? But the next day the coach sat me on the bench for our next game. He said that I had to choose whether I wanted to live and breathe football and train my hardest with him or to hang out with my friends doing nothing; in any case, he didn't want me to waste his time. That one game riding the pine hurt a lot. You better believe that I was very angry with the coach, because I had looked forward so much to playing in that game. I had hardly realized at the time that it was the most important lesson in my life. All the same, I accepted his wise advice, chose football and never missed another practice until the day I hung up my cleats. But the youth these days have no respect for anything nor do they heed anyone's advice," Sean admonished, still expecting Alberta to feel the fuller weight of his words than me.

"But if you finally learned how to listen to somebody when you were young, why did you stop all of the sudden now that you are older?..." I said.

"Come again?"

"I mean, why don't you listen to us, for example? Maybe advice shouldn't just be a one-way street where someone older always gives the directions and someone younger always obeys. Instead, everyone should be able to discuss, to understand, to share...and to communicate! Today's youth isn't as bad as you think, and if you gave it a thought, you would find out how little you actually know about us!"

"Hm...," Mr. Martin wanted to respond but was distracted, as another man approached wanting to give him a birthday congratulation.

"Sean, there are you!"

"Let's go, Simon, I'll show you to our table!" Alberta said abruptly, leading me away from her parents.

Having made our way almost out of the crowd's sight, I kissed Alberta on her cheek, and I continued to silently walk beside her. She was embarrassed, but in a lovely way. She took a quick glance at me and smiled.

"You look gorgeous tonight!" I whispered in her ear.

We arrived at our table but were alone for only a few seconds. We were almost immediately joined by her parents. Besides Sean, Laura, Alberta and I, assigned to the "family" table were Ryan and his son Donovan, Samantha and George Turner, a businessman.

The evening's formalities consisted of an infinite stream of compliments directed towards Sean, and the whole time he was truly the centre of attention. Unfortunately, this took several hours. After that, the guests grouped according to their assigned tables, and many individual conversations started up at once. For some reason it reminded me of the way high school students group in a cafeteria during lunchtime.

For instance, there is always a guy at the lunch table who starts the conversation or tells a funny story. Our table that evening had two of this type, George and Ryan. They were having a good time joking around and making sure no one was getting bored. They kept interrupting each other as they told dozens of stories about Sean, which was a testament to how old their friendship with him was. However, Sean was perhaps the glue that bound them together. They seemed to me to be two absolutely different people, both from their appearances and their behaviour. Ryan was handsome and polite, and he could have become the face of almost any men's clothing advertisement company. But despite being the same age as George, he was his complete opposite. George was heavy-set and tactless. But, as for me, I much preferred George, even when he was being rude, because at least he was being honest, which couldn't be said about smiling Ryan, as he sat hiding his real thoughts.

At some point, our table began to break up. First, Berry and Laura, offering their apologies, left the table. Then Sean took Samantha aside so they could speak one-on-one. I thought for a second, although it was hardly possible, that the subject of their conversation wasn't Alberta. Donovan gave his own semblance of an apology and vanished. So, left seated at the table were just George, Mr. Roberts, and myself. Now that Sean had left for a moment, they rather aggressively began to talk about expanding Ryan's business, and it seemed that the subject had already been discussed by them previously. For some reason neither of them wanted to speak about it in Mr. Martin's presence. As for me, I unwillingly became the hostage of their conversation.

"What about your plans to expand the clinics?" George inquired.

"I've already found our first clients, but I still need additional sources of financing." Ryan answered. "I would be glad to do business with you!"

"I don't know...," George was having his doubts, "I don't have experience in this area, and I am not used to completely trusting someone else's expertise. Honestly, I don't get it. Why do you want to launch a hospital?"

These words really made my ears perk up. Gossip about expanding the clinic had been going around for a while, but no one really could have supposed that when Ryan said "expand", he didn't just mean opening divisions in other cities, but rather an actual hospital. Just then, I had the urge to butt into their conversation, but at the same time I was trying to hold myself back.

"Our practice proved that consultations couldn't help everybody to completely get rid of the dependence on social networking. Sometimes it is necessary to use extreme measures. In this case, we are creating an atmosphere where there is total isolation from the source of threat!" Ryan continued, "And believe me, it is a very promising opportunity. I already have several clients for the hospital"

"Well... I don't pretend to understand everything on the Web, but if you tell me that it's going to work, then I will show it to my people who work in this field. If they agree with you, you can count on my investment, and I'll recommend that my business partners do the same. Maybe you can give us a presentation?" George asked.

"Yeah, a presentation is a good idea. I will be more than happy to do that!"

"Honestly, I am still upset by the fact that my assistant called in to your clinic once over Skype in order to arrange my visit, but nobody answered. I told him not to call anymore, because I didn't want to invest in a company with poor service. I mean, if he wasn't able to get someone to answer at your clinic, who could guarantee that other clients wouldn't face the same issue? Nowadays, service and reputation are everything. And if you don't think so, then I don't want to be involved in your business."

I realized that this was the call that I missed while working at the reception table instead of Jessica when she was throwing the boomerang with Steven and Anthony.

"George, I assure you that that missed call...it was a one-time event, and it is never going to happen again..." As Ryan tried to justify himself, he became quite nervous – he must have desperately needed the money. "The guilty employee received quite a scolding! As luck would have it, the guilty party is sitting right here at our very table. Simon, assure Mr. Turner that it was one-time screw-up and that everything has been going smoothly ever since! "

Since both George and Ryan were looking right at me now, I couldn't manage to stay silent any longer.

"So you decided to launch a hospital?" I wanted to specify, just in case.

"Yeah...," Ryan answered reticently, not having expected such a question from me, "But is it any of your business?"

"Hey, Simon!" George suddenly burst out, "What's your opinion? Do you think the youth really need help in freeing themselves from the bonds of internet slavery?"

"Look who are you asking, George! Young people don't even understand how deeply they are stuck in this muck!" Ryan barked back, calculating his pre-emptive response to apparently keep me quiet.

"And who would understand it better than me?" I jumped in, thwarting Ryan's efforts, "I don't even have a single social networking account!"

"What? Did you reject them by your own choice?" George asked, becoming more intrigued.

"On his own! Yea right! All his social networking accounts were deleted by court order!" Ryan sneered, hoping that this fact would make my opinion in George's eyes seem more insignificant.

"Hah! And what was the reason for that?" Mr. Turner laughed. "Were you overusing them and then forced to take a break?"

"Oh, definitely, since I was a hacker, after all," I replied. "But now I have neither an Internet connection nor social networking privileges. And this allows me to view the addictions of my peers from the outside now, while at the same time being part of the same generation."

"So, tell me, what do you think?" George smiled.

"I am afraid my point of view isn't so advantageous for everyone sitting at this table!" I grinned.

"Oh, come on! He is a big boy! He'll get over it," George laughed, patting Ryan several times on the shoulder.

"Simon, don't forget...," Mr. Roberts was about to fly into a rage.

"Ryan, calm down, let the guy speak!" George interrupted him.

"So, excuse me for my honesty and, one could say, even audacity, but it seems to me that the potential to gain profit often clouds Mr. Robert's common sense. I mean, frankly, he's gone too far this time. I can't conceive how it is even possible to think that isolating somebody from social networking websites, which inextricably would cut them off from communication with friends, could bring any positive result, except for perhaps filling Mr. Robert's pockets with some money."

"Simon, you are still young and unable to conceive of many things. And, by the way, we won't prohibit all communication with friends at the hospital, only that aspect of communication that can pose a threat, whether by means of a computer, a cell phone or a tablet. Friends will always be allowed to visit our clients and spend as much time with them as they want. Also, a client will have access to a landline telephone, with which they can connect with anybody. Let me repeat it one more time: the prohibition will be enforced only in relation to modern electronic devices. The current generation is fenced off from communicating with real, living, breathing people, and instead prefer to sit fingering their mobile gadgets or playing on their laptop all day long. Our goal is to protect the youth from the negative influence of the digital era; to force young people to remember that there also exists real communication; to convince them that the virtual world is nothing more than a world of illusion!" Ryan vigorously defended his position while also trying to convince his potential investor, Mr. Turner, of his vision.

This was the second time this evening that someone was trying to make their point through me and not to me, in hopes of persuading someone else. The subject was also the same, and so were the words. It suddenly struck me that Mr. Roberts had already used that speech with none other than Mr. Martin himself. And Sean repeated Ryan's words when he spoke to me not in order to convince Berry, as I had thought, or me, but rather in order to convince himself. And this could have meant only one thing – Alberta was in danger! And I wasn't going to allow anything to happen to her.

"Since you began your argument by emphasizing my age, I want to remind you that immaturity influences understanding of modern reality in the same way that obsolescence does. You skilfully use stereotypes, packaged ways of thinking, but actually hidden behind it all is your own purpose. Virtual communication is not an exchange of reality for an illusion! It is based on the same principles and desires of people and conjures up the same emotions as reality. The difference being not in matters of perception, but in the means of execution. The telephone in the past was also a fantastic device, making conversation between two people possible over considerable distance. But, it too wasn't considered real communication at first. And now you are going to prohibit cell phone and computer use in the hospital but want to allow access to a telephone, not even considering that a basic landline telephone is just as equal a threat as the other devices? You just have to get used to it. Will it be necessary for social networking websites to exist more than a hundred years in order to be perceived simply as convenient means for interaction and not as something detrimental?"

"You..." Ryan wanted to stop me, but I wouldn't let him.

"Social networking platforms are popular for a reason – they represent the natural desires of people. People desire to make friends, to socialize, to express themselves. Today's youth is not so different from previous generations; we just received new ways in which we can realize our needs. Electronic devices don't build fences between people, but instead support them in becoming more social. So by protecting someone from social networking sites you will achieve nothing. Even without digital devices people still will strive to communicate. Maybe there are other ways to release this desire, maybe even without modern devices. But why should you determine which forms of interaction are right and which are wrong? Who gave you this right? Why is it necessary to pins labels on virtual and "real" communication? Are they even different phenomena? Maybe this difference is just imagined? Maybe we should first answer whether the emotions in our minds are real or virtual? You know, even if you see only the text on the screen, you know that somewhere out there a real person is chatting with you. Communication is communication, and it doesn't matter in which form it takes place!"

Ryan obviously didn't expect such a reaction from me, so he just stared at me, speechless. When he finally decided to counter my argument, our debate was interrupted by Samantha, who approached us unnoticed. I didn't know whether she heard our conversation or not.

"Could I steal Simon from you for a minute? It is very urgent!" Sam put her hand on my shoulder, entreating Ryan and George.

"Yeah, why don't you do us both that favour!" Mr. Roberts answered curtly, visibly angered by our conversation.

"And Mr. Turner, do you know that Ryan is also an investor? Somewhat like yourself. Ask him. I am sure that he can definitely share his experience in investing in profitable companies, like Facebook Inc., for example!" I smirked, then got up and followed Sam. I could faintly here George over my shoulder remark, "What did he mean?"

I was pretty certain that such an experienced businessman as Mr. Turner could find out the truth about Ryan holding stock in Facebook Inc. if he wanted to. But I didn't cherish this so-called "illusion" that this could prevent Mr. Roberts from getting money for the hospital. And it didn't matter either whether it was George or some other investors. Ryan was too good at marketing ... and at brainwashing.

"Simon, what do you think you are doing!" Samantha scolded me, as we walked away from the table. That question and that tone let me know that she had overheard the conversation.

She continued, "You know, that Ryan has the Judge in his pocket, and he can send you to a place way worse than that clinic!"

"I couldn't keep quiet! And I hope you will intercede for me with the Judge."

"You know, Simon, I understand and support your position, but sometimes you've got to think about the consequences, about your future...," She faltered, as if she wanted to tell me something but hadn't decided yet whether I was supposed to know or not.

"Go on, Sam!" I hastened her.

"Well..., you must promise that you won't do anything stupid!" She said sternly, looking in my eyes. "Honestly, I want you to know this from me."

"Ok, I promise."

"I had conversations with both Ryan and Sean today, and they believe that Alberta's consultations have been ineffective... they want to commit her to the new hospital...," Sam said. "I refused to make such a recommendation and was removed as her counsellor. Now Ryan is her personal psychologist!"

"I know that... I figured enough," I growled, remembering the improbable similarity of Mr. Martin and Mr. Roberts's words. "Can you do something about this?"

"Nothing... I tried to influence at least Sean's decision, but they had already decided everything." Samantha confessed regretfully.

We stood for several seconds quietly. I needed to think and Samantha wanted to give me time to process everything. I perfectly realized that Ryan was desperately striving to find as many clients for the hospital as possible in order to show potential investors that there is a high demand for the hospital's service... that man would do anything and everything to achievement his purpose. But I wasn't about to allow him to use Alberta as a lynchpin in his scheme.

"Sam, can I count on you?" I grasped at the first idea, which, as it seemed to me at the moment, could have helped Berry.

"Of course, Simon, but what kind of help you are asking for?" Samantha asked with uneasiness.

I realized that although I trusted her, she might have agreed to help me only in order to know what I was up to. Getting this information from me, from her point of view, could have been the only chance to prevent me from doing "something stupid".

"I know how we can help Alberta and avoid this whole mess! I'll need you tomorrow morning. I've got to go now!" I said quickly, rushing off in search of Alberta.

"Simon!" Sam shouted to me, while I was hurrying off. "What are you going to do?"

"You will find out tomorrow. Just be at home!" I turned to her for a second and then vanished into the crowd.

A few minutes later I found Alberta. She was taking a photo of one of the ice figures with her smartphone. Donovan stood near to her side, telling her about something while vividly gesticulating.

I walked up to Berry quietly, took her hand and pulled her along behind me.

"I'll tell you everything later, trust me," I whispered to her in response to the look of amazement on her face.

"Hey, who do you think you are?" Donovan shouted at my back. He got angry because Alberta was so inconsiderately withdrawn from their conversation. "Maybe you didn't notice – but we were talking!"

I paid his protest no attention and led my girlfriend out of the Grand Ballroom to the lobby. I didn't want anyone, especially Sean, to see us, so we tried walking along the wall, out of sight.

"Simon, could you tell me where we are going?" The girl couldn't stay quite for a second and asked me this when still had one hundred feet to the exit.

I stopped and turned to face her, with by my back to the door.

"I need to tell you something. It's very important!" I said, trying to sound as persuasive as possible. "But first we must get out of here and stay out of sight!"

"I don't think it's going to happen – my father's standing right behind you!" Alberta warned, looking over my shoulder.

I turned back for a second to figure out what to do next. Sean really was walking in our direction from the entryway doors, where he probably had seen off an important guest. He was staring attentively at his smartphone screen, and hadn't yet noticed us. All he had to do was glance up for a second – and that would mean any chance of saving Alberta went out the window.

I realized that I had only one chance to make the right decision. We couldn't have stayed there, because of Sean. Also it was impossible to walk back to the Grand Ballroom, because Donovan, Alberta's mother or Ryan could have impeded our progress. I looked around for a way out and saw two doors with characteristic pictures along the wall – one was a picture of a man and the other a woman. Just then, I realized that the men and women's bathrooms could serve as our temporary shelter.

"Let's go!" I ordered Berry.

I had to make one more decision, because I didn't want to risk leaving Alberta alone even for a minute. Which bathroom would we go in, the women's or men's? I didn't want to be seen in the former, but I would be less happy to have my girlfriend seen in the later. Even more importantly, the women's room only had stalls, so that reduced our chances of bumping into someday considerably. Most importantly, however, Sean wouldn't be able to accidentally detect us there.

"Simon!" Berry shrieked, when I opened the door through which only women are allowed to pass.

"Shhh!" I put my forefinger to my lips and closed the door behind us.

There was nobody inside. It was a long room, with walls decorated with sparkling marble. There were seven stalls total, and opposite to each were sinks and massive mirrors. Between each mirror hung bronze candlesticks.

Having inspected the room thoroughly, I went back over to the door and cracked it opened slight to take a peek to see where Alberta's father was at. I was startled to him standing only twenty or thirty away from us. Some men had stopped him to talk for a moment. So, luckily, he wasn't a major concern at the moment. Just then, I noticed two girls walking towards the woman's bathroom. I hoped, that they would just pass by – but with each step I heard I was becoming more and more convinced that their destination was our temporary shelter. I realized that if they were to enter and freak out about me being in the women's room, then Sean, standing nearby, would definitely have heard the clamour and imagined... he mind would run wild thinking about me and his daughter being in the women's bathroom together!

"We need to hide!" I whispered, pulling Berry inside one of the stalls.

"But why?"

"Keep quiet!"

Then I heard the door slam shut and the sound of girls' chatting. As I feared, we had guests.

"That guy at the other table was staring at you the whole evening!" one girl said to the other.

"Oh, come on. I think he was looking at something or someone else..." the other girl said, not believing her friend.

I think they were standing directly across from our stall, right in front of our mirror, powdering their noses. I realized that we were getting ourselves in deep here, and I had to figure out something quick. First of all, though, I needed to get rid of Sean.

"Berry, text your father that you want to see him at the table urgently!" I whispered in Alberta's ear.

"But... where is he?" She asked.

"He is standing next to the bathroom door and we need him to go away!"

"Right!" She nodded and, having taken her smartphone from her purse, she quickly typed the text and sent it to Sean.

"And now, shout "mouse!"

"What?" she replied in disbelief.

"Yell that there is a mouse in this stall!" I implored her.

"Why?" Alberta didn't understand. "How is that going to help us?"

"You'll see!" I said. "But do it very loud and expressively!"

"OK!" Alberta said, gathering herself for second before screaming, "Mouse, mouse! There's a mouse in here!"

We didn't have to wait long. Almost instantaneously we could hear the girls squeal in unison. They obviously didn't get to finish powdering their noses, and the clatter of their heels resounded throughout the room. As I had hoped, the girls were running out of the bathroom from fear of our little non-existent mouse. Just as the door slammed shut behind the girls Alberta and I burst out laughing.

"Simon, you're crazy!" she exclaimed.

"Let's get out here before somebody else comes in...," I said, taking her hand and leading her out, "...or before they call pest control!"

We managed to leave the building without any other adventures. I nodded to the valet, and he quickly ran off to bring my bicycle. While we were waiting, Alberta embraced my around my neck, and I placed my hands on her waist – we were finally away from the eyes of her parents and could let our true emotions show.

"Simon, what are you going to do?" she asked gently.

"The question is not what I am going to do, but what your father and Ryan are going to do." When I uttered these words, she jerked back a little.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you once we are on a road."

"Your vehicle, sir!" The valet brought over the bike and handed it to me.

"Thank you!" I took the bicycle, and gave him a tip, leaning in, "You didn't see us leaving this place!"

"As you wish, sir!" valet smiled.

"My dad texted "Where are you?" Alberta said, looking down at her smartphone.

"Reply that you felt sick and went home!"

"OK!" The text appeared on her phone before she even agreed to type it!

I went on foot and lifted up Alberta by her waist to place her on the bike. I took the handlebars, so that Alberta was situated right between my hands. I began walking and pushing the bike forward.

A few seconds later, I began a very uneasy conversation.

"Alby, your dad and Ryan..."

"What?"

"Ryan wants to expand his clinic by launching a hospital, intending for people who will be under round-the-clock supervision, and all electronic devices, especially those with access to the Internet, will be prohibited for use. And your father has already agreed that you would be one of the first people who receive the treatment they offer there to help get rid of "dependency on social networking," I said.

"It can't be true!" she said in shock, "How did you find that out?"

"Both your father and Ryan were hinting about it in their conversations with me, and then Samantha confirmed it." I answered. "And now, Mr. Roberts is going to be your personal psychologist."

"I don't know what to say..." Berry fretted.

I also was speechless.

The surrounding scenes of the New York nightlife calmed our nerves down. The dark streets, illuminated only by lanterns and display windows for round-the-clock shops, were absolutely devoid of people. Even at the traffic lights, cars were patiently waiting for the green light. For some time we moved along silently, enjoying the sudden tranquility of the night, and neither of us wanted to interrupt that silence. I used that time to go over everything in my head and to make my final decision.

"Simon, why doesn't dad understand me?" Alberta pleaded, having just pre-empted my own question.

"Don't blame him," I said. "Your father honestly thinks that this is best for you. His only fault is his excessive trust in Ryan."

"And what I should do?" she countered, "If I can't rely on my parents, then who can I trust?"

I stopped and took Berry in my arms and lifted her from the bike, which fell to the ground without my support. Then, leaving my hands on her waist, I looked straight into the eyes of my girl and made possibly the most important decision in my life.

"Who can you trust?" I beseeched, "What about me, Berry? Every day I become more and more certain that you will have my heart forever. You are my Beauty Queen, and I would like you to make a choice now..." I paused for a second, "Will you keep the title of "my Miss Martin" or will you become "Mrs. Simon Parker?"

"Simon, are you..." she stopped, unable to finish her words from shock.

"I love you, and I promise that we will decide our future together, and won't let anybody... not Ryan, nor your father... hurt you or tear us apart," I proclaimed, staring deep into her eyes. "Alberta, will you marry me?"

My question was followed by longest moment of my life. Berry didn't avert her eyes, and I watched as she opened her lips to reply.

"You could ask me one thousand times... anyway... anytime... and you would always hear the same answer – "Yes, Simon!"

Then we forgot about everything that happened prior as our lips met in a gentle kiss. It seemed all our troubles had gone away.

"We'll do it tomorrow," I avowed, but then immediately corrected myself, having understood that "tomorrow" had already come. "I mean today."

"Simon, what about the rings?" Berry asked with the smile, jolting me back into reality after our kiss.

I looked around, but didn't see any jewellery stores open. However, one display window nearby was lit up, attracting night-time clients into a tattoo salon.

"Berry, how sure are you about your feelings for me?"

"Simon, what kind of question is that?" Alberta retorted, slightly angry.

"I mean, are you sure that if you accept a ring from me now, you will never take it off," I specified.

"I don't really understand what you're getting at, but yeah... I'm sure!" she confirmed, without hesitation.

"So let's go get our rings right now then," I asserted, taking the bike and leading Berry towards the brightly lit window, which was covered with various tattoo posters.

Inside, we saw a guy with a short, orange beard, who had tattoos all over his neck. He wore an unbuttoned shirt over top of a T-shirt, which had a sewn-on badge with the inscription "Bob". His style was completed by gym shoes and slightly torn jeans. The interior of the room was plastered with posters of various punk-rock groups. Near the entrance, clients were supposed to wait on a sofa. In the centre of the room stood a bent armchair and a table, which was covered with sketches of tattoos, some devices and other random stuff. A chair was situated just under the table. Bob was sitting nearby on his stool.

"How can I help you, friends?" he asked suddenly with a high-pitched voice.

"We need to get a couple tattoos!" I answered.

"Do we?" Alberta was surprised.

"Well, you've come to the right place!" Bob got up and took a big album from the table.

"You can look through this, or we could think up something together... but that will cost you more," he warned, passing the album to me.

"We need wedding rings," I quickly responded, brushing aside the album.

"As tattoos?" Alberta moaned. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah!" I nodded with assurance.

"You are crazy, after all!" She concluded and, after giving it a second thought, added, "...but for some reason I like this idea!"

"So... wedding rings...," Bob said. "At least it explains why you are dressed like this! You know, we don't see a whole lot of guys in tuxedos and girls in evening dresses in here."

He leafed through the album, trying to find something there, but then closed it and began to look us over.

"You know guys, I will make you individual sketches... something original!" he proclaimed. "I mean, wedding rings is a special case! But you got to tell me something about yourselves... you know, to stimulate my imagination!"

"That would be wonderful!" Alberta exclaimed, smitten with Bob's idea.

He returned to the table and took up a pencil and a sheet of paper, using the album as a writing surface. He invited us to take a seat on the sofa as he sat down on the stool.

"Well, who wants to start? What do you want to see in your future ring?" Bob implored with the look of an artist holding a brush and palette instead of the pencil and the sheet.

"Let me describe you to him!" Alberta asserted, looking over at me.

"OK, then I'll describe you!" I consented to her idea. "Could we describe each other?"

"Oh, that's even better. The rings I'll draw will reflect the perceptions of your partner," the tattoo artist explained. "So, what do you love about each other?"

"OK, you go first!" I hastened Alberta, because I was really curious about my description from her point of view.

"Well..." she began pensively, "he is.... he is.... the one person, who exists in this world only for me!"

"OK...keep going," Bob steered Alberta, expecting more.

"That's all that I wanted to say. He is mine and he is only for me – it is the main thing!" Berry concluded.

"Right..., that's really a vivid description," Bob replied, perplexed by her answer. Honestly, I was also puzzled by her words, given that I expecting something a little more "in depth" about me.

"Alright, it's your turn, Romeo!" the tattoo artist said, turning to me. Just then, I suddenly realized that in describing the person I love, I didn't want to talk about her appearance, character or anything else that I knew about her. All that was absolutely inconsequential. I loved not just some parts or traits of Alberta, not something specific, but her whole being, simply because she exists!

"She is... mine!" It didn't matter how unoriginal it sounded, it was the only phrase that I wanted to say to characterize Berry and that would explain to her how I loved her. I took her hand in mine, and we clenched our hands so tightly that I could feel the pulse in her fingers.

"Yeah, man, you've made my task way easier now!" Bob snarled sarcastically, before trying to get information another way. "Tell me how your relationship has gone since you started to date! Think specifically about something unusual, like an event or maybe some difficulty you overcame together! "

Alberta and I exchanged glances. We didn't want to tell Bob about the turning point in our relationship, which mostly occurred in the clinic, and we especially didn't want to explain why we were there in the first place. But we also didn't want to lie to the guy, since he was trying to truly grasp our feelings for each other.

"Somehow everything became possible mostly because of the Internet!" I hinted, just to ignite his imagination.

"So you meet each other on some social networking site?" Bob was putting his feelers out for more.

"Kind of!" Alberta winked to me.

Obviously it wasn't the whole truth. But I was enrolled at the clinic because the judge thought a hacker could be re-educated by some therapists who offered treatment for internet dependency. Berry was put there because her parents felt that she should only be able to use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram under professional supervision. So, following that logic, social networking websites sufficiently affected the development of our relationship.

"Ok... well... and where did you have your most romantic date at?" Bob continued his "interrogation".

Again, we exchanged glances, as though trying to corroborate our versions telepathically. I felt at that moment it would be better to let Alberta answer first, because if we had expressed differing points of view, it would have meant that we didn't feel the same emotions and didn't share impressions. However, this thought was almost instantly superseded by another one. Deceit in the form of adjusting my opinion to match Berry's would have been even worse in this case. It seemed that Alberta felt the same way at that moment. Therefore, we both looked back at Bob and practically simultaneously said, "At the New York Public Library!"

"Wow... such an unusual place for date..." Bob responded. A second later he added enthusiastically, having finally found his inspiration, "OK, that's enough! I got it. Now I just need a bit of time."

He stopped his inquiry and plunged into creativity. Honestly, I didn't think that two random facts about our relationships could have served as a basis for something impressive. But, ten minutes later, when the tattoo artist exclaimed like a giddy little child, who had just built a sand castle on a beach: "It's ready!" I changed my mind.

He passed his sketch over to us. Alberta snatched it from his hands and turned around. The sketch depicted two rings with carefully detailed presses in their centres. Inside the press of the bigger ring, which was obviously was meant for me, was an inscription consisting of the beautifully drawn letters, "Alberta". A web with two interconnected hearts decorated the inscription. On the press of the smaller ring, on the same background and with the same letter style was written the inscription, "Simon". The shoulders of the ring were also drawn to look like a web, which surrounding presses.

"What does that mean?" Alberta asked.

"Ex libris!" I answered, having beaten Bob to the punch. "It is a designation of the owner, usually used to indicate book possession, but sometimes it can be applied to other things for the same purpose."

"Does that mean I own you and you own me?" Berry added, looking at me.

"Yeah. It means that I am the property of Alberta and you are the property of Simon." I smiled and looked at her. "You are mine and I am yours."

"You belong to each other and your hearts are connected by the web!" Bob explained his idea. "This theme is a combination of your most romantic date and the Internet!"

I was very surprised by the level of sophistication the tattoo maker demonstrated in absorbing everything that heard from us.

"It's so wonderful!" Alberta rejoiced.

"Yeah, we like it!" I agreed, remembering that I had only made the proposal to Alberta less than hour ago, and now I am already using "we", as though we were a family.

"Well... who's the first to go under the knife?" Bob joked, as he took the tattoo machine from the table and looked inquisitively at us.

"Usually the bride puts her ring on before the groom," I answered slyly.

"Does it hurt?" Alberta cowered.

"I will try to be gentle as possible!" Bob assured her.

Alberta then took a seat on the bent armchair and the tattoo artist began his job. I took the chair, which had been standing under the table, sat down near Berry and held her "unoccupied" hand. I periodically felt a slight shiver on tips of her fingers that ran through her whole body because of the needle's injection. Our eyes locked and we hardly spoke a word. Bob was telling different stories about odd fellows, who asked him to made strange tattoos. But we didn't listen to him. We were too busy staring into each other's eyes. We weren't thinking about anything... just looking... I only thought that he would certainly tell somebody our story someday, having seasoned it with his unique slang.

As soon as he finished with Alberta, it was my turn. Probably, because with me, as with guy, Bob didn't feel the need to be so gentle, thus making his job all the faster. When it was all over, we both were the new owners of wedding rings.

"Put your hand next to mine!" Berry asked me, having stretched our her palm. She took a picture of our hands and our rings side-by-side.

"I wouldn't upload it on any social networking sites now," I warned her.

"Simon, I don't want to hear this kind of talk anymore!" she responded angrily. She was under a lot of pressure, and I didn't need to make things worse.

Having thanked Bob, we left out the tattoo parlour. I lifted the bike off the ground and began pushing it, while Berry held my left hand. The sun was rising and we walked down to the pier – the best place imaginable to greet the new day. When we reached the pier, Berry's parents began calling her on her smartphone. Perhaps they had only just found out that Alberta hadn't gone home and became worried or maybe even angry. But she didn't want to answer their call.

That sunrise was another unforgettable memory. I mean, it was one of those kinds of memories that you tell your grandchildren about. We stood embracing one another and observed the slow magnificence of the unbelievably beautiful disk of fire rising over the horizon.

We weren't alone – there was also a fisherman a few hundred feet away in his boat. But that sunrise belonged only to us. Although, probably, we've painted the whole picture with our emotions... the ones that we experienced that night... and perhaps that moment with the beautiful sunrise was just a figment of two young lovers' imaginations, since the fisherman floated along not seeming to notice anything.

After the sun blossomed like a beautiful flower, I turned to Alberta.

"You should go now to Samantha. I need to settle some formalities first," I insisted, "but at midday I will meet you at the city clerk's office."

"What formalities, Simon?"

"According to New York State Law, we need to get a marriage license, because we are under eighteen years old. In order to get that we need the permission of our parents for us to marry in the presence of an official at the city clerk's office!" I answered.

"But my parents will never give their permission!" Berry cried.

"Leave this issue to me..." I comforted her. "Samantha told me that she was going to help us. Ask her to pretend to be your mother in front of the city official. I'm going to get an ID card for her."

"What?" Berry was shocked at my request. She was the first but not the last person to be amazed by me that day.

"Just do as I say and everything will work out!" I assured her.

"And what about my dad?"

"I'll take care of that as well."

"I have no idea how you'll manage to do that!"

"Don't worry. But we need to hurry though!" I interjected, interrupting her stream of doubts.

"But I don't want you to go... "

I also didn't want to part with Alberta, so I accompanied her to Samantha's home. After leaving her there, I biked over to the student's dormitory, where Pitt was living. It was still very early in the morning, but, despite the sleepless night, I felt no sign of fatigue.

As I was walking along, carefully considering the details of my plan, I didn't even notice that all of sudden I was standing in front of Pitt's room.

"Who is it?" the student shouted indignantly, having heard his doorbell ring.

"It is me... Simon... open up!"

"Simon?" Pitt was surprised and, having opened the door, added "What the... man, why so early?"

"I have a job for you," I cut him off, walking through his open doorway. "Have you saved the film we used for making photos?"

"What?" Pitt was obviously still asleep on his feet.

"The photos of Samantha, my community service supervisor," I specified.

"Oh... I probably still have them somewhere," he said dubiously.

Though, judging from the slovenly state of his room, he hadn't thrown out anything for past several months.

"I need to make an ID with her photo under the name "Laura Martin"," I said.

"Are you serious?" Pitt was caught off guard by my request. "Do you understand what you are asking?"

"Making a fake ID in the past wasn't a problem for you!"

"Simon, it's one thing to make a fake for friends to buy alcohol, but what you are asking...," Pitt hesitated, "... what do you need a fake ID of this woman for?"

"You probably don't want to know!" I smiled.

"Yeah, you're probably right!" He responded.

"Come on! I won't tell anyone. You hear? Nobody, except the two of us, is going to know about it," I assured him. "Anyways, you make the best fakes in all of New York!"

"Maybe...," Pitt said remorsefully, but then quickly added, "But only because we're old friends!"

"Great, man, I always knew I could count on you! But there's one more thing... Search Google for "Sean Martin", find a suitable photo of him – it won't be hard, he is very public figure, and make a fake ID with his photo and under his name!"

"Simon, it's a little bit...," Pitt was indignant, "...strange, isn't it?"

"I know, man! But I just need it to be done anyways!"

"Ok...," Pitt said, "as I understand, you need two identification cards with photographs, issued by the US. But do you need something special, like a military ID or other variant... like a driver's license... is that the optimal variant?"

"Driver's licenses sound good," I smiled.

"Ok, man!"

The room turned almost immediately into a laboratory. I just set back and tried not to disturb the master at work. A few hours later, his work produced two driver's licenses. The first one was for "Laura Martin" with a photo of Samantha, and the second one was for "Sean Martin" with a photo of the real Sean.

"Just in case... you don't know me, and I don't know you!" Pitt said, handing them over to me.

"Thanks, Bro!" I said, giving him a hug. "By the way, do you have a home telephone here?"

"A home one... yeah... somewhere in this heap of junk," my buddy said, searching for the telephone among all the random things lying on the table.

He found it and handed me his old telephone set, which was connected by a cord.

"I haven't used this guy for ages!" Pitt added.

I took a notebook from my pocket and thumbed through several pages in search of Samantha's home number.

"Dude, you never fail to surprise me!" Pitt said, smiling widely. "I mean, a cell phone notebook is way more convenient than using... hah... don't mind me!"

Having dialled the number, I heard Sam's voice. "Hello!"

"Sam... Hi! Is everything OK with Alberta? "

"She's OK! Simon, where are you?" She asked in response.

"Don't be late with Berry at the city clerk's office!" I replied, ignoring her question and turning off the phone. There was no time to talk, because there was still a lot of work to do. The biggest issue was finding a "dad" for Alberta. As I was turning off the receiver, I barely heard as Samantha tried to say something that sounded like "Simon, we need to...", but I didn't pay any attention to her words.

Having left the dormitory and hopped on my bike, I quickly biked over to Joshua's club – the one place where I hoped to find the missing elements of this puzzle. I tossed my bike down in the emergency lane near the building, and I walked up and knocked on the old familiar door, however it remained closed. I didn't give up and showed persistence, continuing to knock. When it finally opened, in front of me appeared the person who met me and Berry just a few days ago.

"Hey, man, what are you doing here so early in the morning!" he reproached me. "The club is closed!"

"Is Joshua still here?" I asked, staring right at the guy. "We need to talk!"

"Yeah, he's here" He decided not to ask Joshua for permission to let me in. "...come in then!"

The man motioned me to come in and I followed him. I took the bicycle with me and put it in the passageway, leaving it in the emergency lane would have been a mistake.

"Is that the bike? Nice, dude!" the man complimented me, when passing by my iron horse.

I looked back, and addressed him, while we were walking. "Have you, by any chance, ever tried your hand at acting?"

I made the man quite confused by my odd question, as though I had found out his secret. That reaction spoke louder than words.

"Have you seen me in the community theatre?" He answered with a totally different voice than he previously used – it was unthreatening. And I noticed his hesitation, as though he had a strong desire to hide that part of his life. Obviously, that person didn't want his colleagues to know about such a peculiar hobby for a supposedly brutal man.

"Yeah!" I said, having hit the nail on its head. It didn't matter that I hadn't seen him neither in theatre nor in any other places, except the club, but the fact that he was an actor was a big advantage, and the major reason why I chose him was his striking resemblance to Sean. Moreover, perhaps it would be easier to convince him if I gave him a "role" to play.

Having entered the main area of the club, I was struck by the silence reigning there. Waitresses, the bartender, and some other staff were cleaning up last night's mess, but the sound of them bustling about was insignificant in comparison with the booming music played throughout the night. Joshua was sitting in his office, and he looked very exhausted after working hard all night, as most people look in the evenings after hard working day.

"Simon, what are you doing here?" He was surprised by my visit.

"I have an emergency!" I blurted out, not starting the conversation, as etiquette requires, by the traditional "How are you?" and discussions of the weather.

"Simon, can't wait until the evening?" Joshua grumbled, yawning demonstratively. "I've just got off work and I am about to pass out from exhaustion!"

"No, man! It's really urgent!" I insisted.

"Ok, what is it?"

"I know it sounds weird, but I need the help of your bouncer," I said.

"Sorry...," suddenly Joshua, having heard such an unusual request, perked up. "What kind of help do you need from him?"

"I need him to pretend to be someone else," I said, unperturbed.

"Simon, if I didn't know you better, I'd think you were high as a kite!" my friend reacted.

"Joshua, it is very serious. I need him to pretend to be Alberta's father in front of the city clerk!" I took the fake ID of Sean Martin and showed it to my friend. "Take a look at him and try to find at least one difference between him and your guy! And this is a photo of the real Sean Martin, Berry's dad!"

"He really does look like him, but what's this all about, already?" Joshua said, looking over the fake driver's license.

"He must give his permission for marriage..."

"What?!" Joshua sat amazed. "Whose marriage?"

"Me and Alberta!" I answered.

"Have you proposed to her?" Joshua asked, thrilled by the thought, "Man, you should have started with this news! Congratulations!"

"Thanks! But it ain't gonna happen unless our parents give their consent. We are under eighteen years old."

"Wait! Her parents are against it?" Joshua began to understand the situation.

"You know, I kind of, um, forgot to ask them!" I smiled in response.

"Oh, I thought you asked them for their daughter's hand!" he laughed and then continued his interrogation. "Ok, let's assume, Daniel will pretend to be her father, and what about her mother?"

I quietly showed the fake ID, prepared for Samantha.

"Who is she?" He specified.

"She is my community service supervisor. I told you about her."

"Is she also involved?" Joshua couldn't believe it.

"I hope so."

"I don't understand, why all of the sudden right now?" Joshua inquired. "You can wait until both of you turn eighteen and do everything you want without needing anyone's consent!"

"If Berry and I don't get married now, her parents will send her to the hospital... the one Ryan is launching at his clinic! As soon as we get married, she will be free from parental custody and control. That will allow us to make our own decisions. I mean, at least, legally they lose the ability to commit Alberta to the hospital without her consent!"

"Wow! This is complex," Joshua finally grasped the urgency of the whole situation.

"But won't they be able to annul the marriage and her independence based on the counterfeit consent?" Joshua asked.

"Neither her parents, nor Ryan would want the extra attention and scandal in the media, which would happen if they annulled our marriage. They have too much to lose – for instance, Ryan's reputation as a psychologist and as a man who people trust to help them understand and deal with the problems of modern youth; Sean's reputation as a leader, who, according to his own motto, is running his business like a family and his family like a business. But none of these things will seem authentic anymore if people find out that Alberta rebelled against them. You know, reputation is something that they all care about. I am very confident that Ryan and Sean will be forced to except what we've done, and the best they will be able to do is try to negotiate," I responded, parrying Joshua's attack.

"Simon, you are crazy! But I help you. Only on one condition... You have to let me convince Daniel myself." My friend took his radio set and, having pushed the "talk" button, said with a loud voice "Daniel, come to my office!"

"Roger," rattled through the speaker in response, and a second later the door swung open. Daniel entered.

"What's up, boss?" the man addressed Joshua.

"Daniel, Simon and I have a very odd request," Joshua began, speaking with an awkward tone. In my opinion, it wasn't very suitable phrase for such a situation. Because of its excessive delicacy it left too much room for reflection, concerning all the possibilities that were flying around in Daniel's head at the moment. And his decision of either continuing or ending that conversation was mostly dependent on how far his imagination could go. I would have begun with something more specific, though, Joshua knew Daniel way better than I did, so I supposed that he must have understood what he was doing.

"Boss, you know, I owe you a lot and I'll do anything I can for you!" Daniel answered.

"Do you, by chance, have a twin brother?" Joshua asked.

"No!" George answered.

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty..."

"Maybe you don't know about his existence? You were separated in the maternity hospital and, while you were raised as a good guy, he became your evil doppelganger?"

"I doubt that. Boss, I'm not really sure where you are going with this."

"To be frank, there is one man, who bears a remarkable similarity to you! Maybe he even is your lost twin brother or something!" Joshua stopped for a second, thinking about how he should continue the conversation so that it didn't sound like some prank. "And he is evil, really evil. You need to pretend to be him at the city clerk's office and give your consent to his daughter for her marriage with Simon!"

Despite Joshua's attempt to shoot straight, it sounded like a prank and Daniel burst out in laughter.

"Are you joking, Boss?" the man asked. But he didn't see even a hint of a smile on our serious faces, and this made his smirk disappear at once.

"But why do you need me? Why can't he do it himself?" Daniel somehow had forgotten the answers Joshua had given him to the same question a few minutes earlier.

"Because her father is a crazy prick and he is teaming with his best friend, who is also a prick, to commit the girl to the hospital in order to get rid of her dependence on social networking sites. I think it is not necessary to tell you that the Internet is not the only reason they want to put the girl there and, to tell the truth, the actual reasons are totally different. Her father wants to force her to obey his rules – have her break up with Simon, meet the right guy, abandon her own dreams, and follow the path chosen by him. And his friends want to earn some money, using prejudice against social networking. This whole situation hasn't set well with Simon." Joshua responded, briefly telling the essence of my story.

"So you want me to act?" It seemed that Daniel, to some degree, was even humoured by the possibility of practicing his acting skills.

"That's right!" I interjected into the conversation.

"I'm in, then!" The man agreed.

"Thank you, Daniel! You have to be at the city clerk's office at noon with this ID card!" I said and reached the fake over to him.

"Can I come, also?" Joshua petitioned.

"What for? I already found someone for Alberta's mum!" I joked.

"Do you think I would miss such a show!" My friend smiled.

"OK, but I got to run now... there is still a lot to do!" I consented. "See you at noon..."

"Right. Daniel, lead Simon to the exit!" Joshua ordered.

Having left the club, I headed home. The last task was to speak with my parents. Although, I didn't foresee any problems with them. And, if I hadn't been so sure in them, I would have found myself some "other parents".

"Good morning, sweetie!" mum addressed me, noticing me in the entrance hall.

"Hello, Simon!" father added, standing just behind mother.

"Hello, mum... dad! Call in to work and tell them you'll be late!"

"What for?" Mum asked.

"I am going to get married to Alberta today and you have to give your consent!" I shot back. I realized that a long conversation and entering into a polemic with my parents would not have been the best strategy, seeing that time was not on my side. So the only possible option for me to persuade them about the gravity of the situation was an ultimatum, like "You will do what I ask for and that's it." I suppose that instead of a "means of persuading", I should call it a "means of compulsion".

"Simon, are you feeling well?" Mother asked, staring at me as though analysing my health, in such a way as only mothers can look at their children. It seemed, she noticed at the moment, that I was wearing the same clothes, in which I left home last evening.

Father stood silently.

"Look, it is not a joke, and the decision has already been made. Trying to dissuade me is useless. The only thing that is necessary from both of you is to give your consent for our marriage at twelve o'clock at the city clerk's court and...," I, paused, and then added a few seconds later, "that's all I wanted to say. Now, I need to get changed."

I headed for my room. I noticed that mum tried to follow me, but dad stopped her and whispered something in her year. Obviously, they needed to keep back in order to exchange their own thoughts and take a unified stance on my decision. I had to grant them this time.

I quickly changed clothes and dressed in jeans, a shirt, and a jacket. When I was almost ready to go, I heard my mother knocking at my door.

"Simon, could I...?" Mum was standing at the doorway.

"Come in, mum!"

"I need to speak with you!" she sat down on a bed and, patting a place next to her, suggested that I do the same. "It'll just take a minute!"

"If you want to dissuade me, it's not going to happen!" I said, taking a seat.

"I've discussed your decision with your father."

"And what do you think?"

"It is your decision, either right or wrong, and we respect it. You are a smart boy and must have serious reasons for such a spur of the moment decision. But, please, think about it one more time. And if you still believe in what you are doing then do it!" She said and, having adjusted the collar of my shirt, went over to the door. "We will be waiting in the car."

"Mum!" I shouted to her, when she almost left the room.

She stopped and turned back.

"Thank you!" I couldn't have followed mum's advice and rethink the decision, but it was too complex to explain to her why. All the same, I was very grateful to her and to dad for their trust. They didn't even know, what was happening at that time, but still supported me.

I got into dad's car and in fifteen minutes, the bulk of which was spent stuck in a traffic jam, we were at the city clerk's office, a massive grey building with the inscription "State of New York" above the main entrance. Joshua and Daniel were already there waiting for us.

We got out of the car and walked up to them.

"Mum, dad, allow me to present to you Mister Martin, Alberta's father!" I intentionally misled my parents. I didn't want to complicate the whole situation by telling the truth about Daniel's fake ID and get them involved. So I decided to keep building on the innuendoes at play.

"Mister Martin, this is my mother, Missis Parker and this is my father – Mister Parker!" I introduced my parents to "Mr. Martin".

"Oh, call me, Sean! It is a great pleasure to finally meet you... Simon told me a lot about you. And, I must admit, he didn't deceive me, Mrs. Parker, you are very beautiful, indeed!" Daniel was very relaxed in his role. He was doing a perfect job as Alberta's dad – though the real one probably wouldn't have started in with compliments to my parents, considering the situation.

I took Joshua aside, while they continued their conversation. Having walked away, I heard my mother, thinking that I wasn't able to hear her, whispering to Alberta's fake dad, "Do you understand what is going on with our children?"

But I wasn't really worried about my parents now... I had another problem to deal with.

"Berry and Samantha must already be here," I said to Joshua, nervously.

"Don't worry, I don't think your bride is running away!"

"Look, you should go over and help Daniel distract my parents."

"And you?" he retorted.

"I'll try to get a hold of Berry." Having said that, I went to a nearby telephone book in order to call Alberta.

I dialled Berry's cell phone number, but she didn't answer. It seemed very strange, because she had never left her smart phone at home. I tried to call her one more time, but it also was in vain. Then I called Samantha.

"Hello!"

"Hi, Sam! Where are you? Is Berry with you?" I fretted.

"Simon, I took her to her parents. You should come over to the clinic, we need to talk." Having heard these words, I turned off the receiver.

The weak link in my plan was the one person who I thought I could trust – Samantha decided to switch her allegiances. Honestly, this hurt tremendously.

I went in to city clerk's court, where my parents, Daniel, and Joshua waited. Having stopped a few feet from them, I gestured to my friend to come over. I didn't want to speak at the moment with my parents, and therefore decided to use him as the messenger.

"The wedding is off," I quietly told to him.

"What? Why?" Joshua was amazed.

"Samantha took Alberta to Sean, who must know everything. Tell Daniel "thanks" for his help, and tell my parents that I am going to speak with them this evening."

"And where are you going?" Joshua asked.

"To finish my community service," I said, as I turned to head off to the clinic.

While I was walking away, I finally had an opportunity to follow mum's advice – to think one more time about the whole situation... especially about Alberta... and how I failed to protect her; about Samantha... and the reasons, which forced her to betray me. I couldn't have conceived, why in spite of all her support and, most importantly, her understanding of how wrong it was what Ryan and Sean wanted to do, that Sam actually decided to help them instead. I wanted to talk to her and hear her justification. But I didn't create the illusion that Samantha managed to persuade me in the necessity of her act, thus proving that I was mistaken. I also didn't want to argue with her, because I had never considered anger and shouting voices to help in resolving problems. But she did deserve a chance to express her thoughts... at least as a sign of our friendship.

### Chapter X

Having entered the clinic, I greeted a smiling Jessica and went over to Sam's office. I quietly walked in and took a seat opposite to her. Samantha also didn't say anything and she wasn't smiling either. The tension between us was palpable.

"Simon, I want to explain everything to you, but you must promise that you will try not only to listen to but also to understand me," she said, breaking the silence.

"I don't remember when I've ever done the opposite, but I can't say the same thing about you!"

"You don't need to play games now! I want to speak with you as an adult and not as a boy!" Having looked aside for a second, she said. "Is it possible?"

"I have always thought, that, when talking about being an adult, that actions speak louder than words," I parried.

"You are right, Simon. And I was very surprised, by what you were trying to do with Alberta. You must know that it was immature and reckless behaviour. Honestly speaking, I am glad, that I prevented your plan from happening, before it was too late. Do you understand where you could land up if it did?"

"I perfectly understand all the possible consequences, including protecting Alberta from Ryan. Maybe our behaviour is more a reflection of our emotions than judiciousness, but it was our only chance!"

"Simon, listen to me. You are not alone and you shouldn't behave, as if you protest to the whole world! I am also on your side. And I don't like what Ryan and Sean are doing with Alberta. But until she is eighteen years old, determination of what is better for her is her parents' prerogative. And you, I, and everyone else must respect their decisions and their means of educating their own daughter. I assure you, they didn't want to bring harm to Alberta. And your immature behaviour made the situation even worse. Her parents as well as Ryan blame you in everything, what happened, and what could potentially happen. They even wanted to bar you from the clinic. And you know how the judge would react to that. I made a lot of efforts to prevent Ryan from coming after you, and I convinced him that your behaviour was no more, then immature desire of self-affirmation and, what was key for him... he doesn't need the additional negative attention. But Alberta's parents still think that you were a bad influence on her and they ready to do everything in order to remove you from her life!"

"What do you mean... where is she?"

"They committed her to the hospital. Don't even try to visit her or connect with her by any means. And also don't expect to be hearing from her. The only link with the world there is one telephone, but it is under strict control, and she won't be permitted to call you. Moreover, Ryan gave orders to security not to let you in."

"Sam, could you answer one question?" I asked. "Why did you tell them everything?"

"I didn't say anything to anybody! Ryan learned it from Donovan, who got the information from Alberta's Instagram page, where she uploaded a photo of yours with your "wedding rings". Then Mr. Roberts told her parents about it." Samantha asserted. "Simon, I advise you to forget about the whole situation, you can't control it. I promise, everything will work out, but if you make any drastic moves now you will only do your own self harm!"

"You know, Sam, I had a favourite computer game when I was a child. It was released on floppy disk and first came out on, according to our current standards, a prehistoric computer. That game was called "Prince of Persia". I spend a lot of time on it, my parents even finally got angry and said that playing was a waste of time – they preferred that I use the computer for educational purposes. The essence of the game, in short, was that one guy tried to fight an army of enemies in order to save his Princess. I wasn't very bothered by the question, why he was doing do that, I just liked to play – to overcome barriers, to get fight, to think things out cleverly. But now, I understand the key point was to rescue the Princess. Because it is what the guy is supposed to do when his girl is in danger. And it seem to me that even the most useless pastime – playing computer games – could teach something useful. " I got up and headed for the door.

"What do you mean, Simon?" Samantha tried to stop me.

"Now it is not a time for discussions, but a time for action!" I rebutted, and added upon leaving the office, "at any rate, I'm going to rescue my Princess."

I walked through the corridor and came up to the reception desk, addressing Jessica: "Jess, where is Ryan?"

"He will be here in several hours. He is presenting his new clinic program to investors!" The girl answered.

I made a puzzled look, as though I hesitated to ask her about something and several seconds later quietly uttered. "But how am I supposed to..."

Having not finished the phrase, I started to turn away from Jessica, pretending, that I was going to walk off.

"Simon, what do you need Ryan for?" Jessica inquired.

"He asked me to transfer the old card files, which are located in his office, into electronic form," I stopped for a second and added, feigning my confusion, "but you know, I don't really know how use computer. I am kind of a dummy in this regard, and it will take a considerable amount of time to get this job done. But, bearing in mind that he is very angry with me for this whole situation with Alberta, I am afraid if I don't do as he asks of me, my ass will be kicked out of the clinic! I don't know what to do!?"

I lied. Of course, Ryan hadn't asked me to do this, but Jessica didn't know that. But she did know about the old card files, which Ryan had saved, and for some reason he considered them very valuable and wanted to transfer them to digital form. She also knew that I worked in the general archive and that I was supposed to help Ryan with his personal archive. But she didn't know, that I was supposed to only sort it out, not transfer it to digital from. She didn't know that I was prohibited from using any electronic device, which needed a processor to function. She also was mistaken, that when it came to computers I was a layman. All of this would play into my hands perfectly, because in order for my new plan of saving Alberta to work, I had to go into Ryan's office for a long period of time without any supervision and, the most important part, without him being there. The only possible option to do this was to persuade Jessica, who held the key to his office, to unlock the door, unsuspecting on any foul play on my part.

"Well... I can call him and ask whether I should open the door or not!" after several seconds of reflections, Jess made the optimal decision for her – but it was the worst for me.

"Yeah... but to be honest, I don't want to distract him from his presentation. He must be very busy negotiating with investors and we are not supposed to disturb him with such trifles!" I said. "He might shout at us!"

"Right. Maybe, I could unlock the door for you without his permission, but only in order to let you see how to go about your task, and when he arrives you will be able to do everything quickly while he's there! " Jess fell for my trap. "And then he will realize that you are very valuable worker! But don't tell him about this."

"That'd be awesome, Jess!" I smiled.

We went to the Ryan office and she unlocked the door.

"Thank you!" I said, entering into the office.

"I'll call you on the phone in this office, if Ryan arrives!" Jessica warned, taking care to be stealthy.

"OK!" I answered and closed the door from inside.

I had been there only two times. The first one was when I brought Ryan the court order, which compelled me to do community service at the clinic; and the second one, when I helped him to move his elegant giant design lamp, which I put at Ryan's request, in the corner of the room. The lamp was standing in the same place as well as the other furniture. Ryan had pretty good taste, demonstrated by his massive glass table, where he kept his computer, and the stylish white leather chair. On the edge of the table was a set of Newton's cradle with the metal balls, and at the moment they were barely vibrating. It was evidence that Ryan has used the mechanism a considerable amount of time ago.

I passed by the table, sat down on the chair, and pushed the computer power button on. The pushing of that button put me in violation of my judicial order, which was equal to committing of a crime. Only one push could have changed whole my life. But the decision had been already made and, having switched on the computer, I saw something that I hadn't seen for a while – the booting up of an operational system.

Several seconds later, a screen appeared on the desktop, with the clinic's emblem being used as wallpaper. I accessed the Internet through the only browser installed on the computer. It had been a long time since my fingers quickly pressed the keys on the keyboard, typing web page domain names, and maybe the last time – but that feeling coursed through my body again.

I still remembered where to find my old hacking programs and passwords for their usage. Several minutes later, protected by several proxy servers, I opened the chat room program "Bed", where I spend a lot of time in the past. After the court order was made, I hadn't communicated with my hacker friends in a long time, but I hoped that they hadn't forgotten me.

Having entered my nickname and my password, which I knew by heart, I saw the program prompt with the message "Konor online".

Mole: Wow... is it you? Konor?

Alexa: Knor is back))))!!!!!!

Alexa:*Konor

Spidy79: Mannn!!!

Konor: miss me much?

Alexa: But how? I heard the court prohibited you from the Internet!

Spidy79: The whole old "Skynet" together again! Only Eggplant is absent, or... Konor, will he be here?

Konor: Hello everybody! Spidy, Eggplant won't be here.

Konor: Alexa, don't think the court can stop me))))

Spidy79: By the way, how is he? I meant, what you did for him... you are a fantastic friend, but you shouldn't have done that... without you, there haven't been any big operations here!

Konor: I couldn't have done differently with Eggplant. He is OK – he launched a real cool club in New York. I am glad to see you all and I will tell everything that happened to me, but later... Now, I need your help. Spidy79, this will be the biggest operation... ever!

Mole: Konor, you are only back for a minute already down to business! That's what I like about you!

Alexa: what do you mean, the biggest operation ever?

Spidy79: yeah, what do you want to hack?

Konor: I need to shut down Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Mole: wHat????? Why?

Spidy79:)))????

Konor: it is a long story, but now is the time for action, not discussion. I'm going to do this either with our without you. But I sincerely hope that you will support me on this.

Spidy79: Konor, you are crazy! Though a year without the Internet could drive anyone mad. Even without considering the question of why you need to do this, shutting down of one of the most protected systems in the world is insanity! They are Internet fortresses!

Alexa: I am in, Konor is here, and nothing else matters!

Spidy79: Alexa, don't be ridiculous!

Mole: Konor, you've got a lot of explaining to do later, but if you need to do this so badly that you'd violate your court order, I am in!

Spidy79: are you kidding me?

Konor: Spidy, will you join us?

Spidy79: ahhh... I guess... I'm in!

Then we plunged into the details of attack. I was glad to communicate with my friends again. And the word "communicate", I don't use casually here whatsoever. Although I was ordered to have only "real" conversations for a long time and despite the fact that it was just text on a screen, it seemed to me just as normal a conversation as any – and I really enjoyed it. I even, referring to somebody's message in the chat room, used phrases like "you said" instead of "you typed" and so on.

It is quite complex...

Even a simple chat room without photos or any other additional information and with high degree of member anonymity became a platform for communication with people, who shared common interests. And it absolutely didn't matter, that we hadn't met each other in reality.

The World Wide Web made such communication possible... It was a chat room – the old Internet... Then social networking sites appeared... They overcame anonymity and allowed people to be on the World Wide Web those people, who they are in reality.

This was the reason why I thought that crashing the leading social networking websites would help me to save Alberta. That act was bound to make people think for a second, that the Internet as whole and social networking platforms particularly, are made of real people, who would be the same people even without World Wide Web... with the same desires, thoughts, and emotions. I hoped that after such an operation people like Ryan wouldn't be able to use stereotypes in their favour, dictating their point of views to the whole world. And Alberta would be set free.

My operation intended to shut down social networking sites for twenty-four hours, and for this purpose the Ddos attack was perfect, which entailed sending our targets' servers such a large amount of external requests, that it would result in overload. First, we send this out to all known hackers, whom we trust and with whom we collaborated in the past, asking for their support. Either our group had enough sway over the hacking community or the purpose of the attack would be taken up for sport, maybe even both were true, but a lot of people responded. It became a truly international action – hackers from all around the world helped us. Honestly, they were mostly from China – compatriots of Spidy79. The large number of participants practically guaranteed that protection of three "Internet fortresses" would not sustain the abrupt increase in the number of incoming requests.

The first to fall was Twitter, which was soon followed by Instagram. But Facebook didn't surrender so easily. Its servers were made to deal with billions of requests every second. Like giant information clouds, they absorbed the pressure of our attack – it was very hard to overload. I realized that as long as Facebook was the main social networking platform, my plan would fail without crashing it. And unless we could overload it by Ddos attack, there was only one way to solve that problem – it would be necessary to shut down their servers physically, to put their data centres out of action for some time. Facebook had several such data centres on US territory and one in Europe. All of them were reliably protected from any possible threats, like their disconnecting due to electrical or human action. Facebook engineers even, in order to manage their collaboration with the most efficient technologies, shared with the public through the Open Compute Project information about their storage system, servers, server racks, architecture of input-output and data exchange, control system, and the construction of data-centres.

And it helped us a lot in finding out of the weak spots in the system. Careful studying of all that information allowed us to understand that the server cooling system was way too far from perfect. It used a combination of water spray and outside air, which did all the cooling, instead of a traditional condenser, moving the heat out of the premise, due to its high energy consumption. But humidity control was arranged in an inadequate manner, and the most important thing, the server power supply units were not securely isolated. It became our target. Actually if I, while working in the archive room, hadn't had to deal with the air-conditioner before, I wouldn't have known of such a solution then.

Facebook engineers wanted one thing from the Open Compute Project – the possibility of improving their technology through it... so ... after the attack took place they got information about weak places of their system... We hacked into the data centre control system and re-customized the vent settings, allowing outside air into the facility. We forced them to be closed entirely, blocking the outside stream. By our calculations, in every centre hot inside air would start circulating continuously through water spray cooling systems, which would try to cool it off. But instead it would lead to the building up of a mix of temperature and humidity. It was supposed to lead to condensation, which would start to fall on the electronic components of servers, including power supply units. As a result, the servers were programmed to be automatically switched off to be prevented from shorting out in such cases.

Our plan worked, and several minutes later we saw Facebook pages not responding to any requests. Convinced that all the main social networking sites were shut down, I thanked everybody for their collective help. It was time for me to act alone. So I switched off all programs to prevent detection of the computer I was sitting at.

I didn't want the CCIA to find out and accuse those who I asked to help me. I also hacked into Ryan's e-mail, which literally took one minute, and I sent a short text from it to several mass media outlets collaborating with Mr. Roberts. That text explained why people can't have access to their Facebook accounts, but it didn't contain information revealing the attack. I wrote under Ryan's name that Mr. Roberts received a new patient at the hospital – Mark Zuckerberg, who, as I put it, was going to shut down Facebook forever, due to the stress of managing the website. It was a lie, containing a lot of convincing phrases like "Mark decided to stop the madness" and "If users want to see their pictures again they should have taken them off the Internet already." All of that was meant to make people, who didn't know why Facebook wasn't working, to think for a second whether they can imagine their lives without social networking websites. And Ryan was going to receive a lot of questions during his presentation of new clinic's program to investors.

The only thing that I needed after all of this was a reliable place to hide out, someplace where I could escape the prosecution of the CCIA. But first I had to get out of the clinic.

"Working on that computer made me exhausted!" I cried, having come up to Jessica, standing on her post. "And my eyes are burning!"

I continued to play the role of the "dummy".

"Oh... you will get used to it!" she smiled.

"I hope!" I also smiled, "I am going to get some fresh air, would you go with me?"

"I would be happy to say "yes", but I'm not allowed to leave my post," Jessica said. She learnt that before, and that was the answer I had expected.

"Right!" I said, and headed to the exit.

Since then, I haven't set foot in that clinic again.

The next day I found out that the collapse of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram entailed the malfunction of cell networks, because people, who, when they lost the opportunity to send and receive messages through the Internet, began to overload it too. Mass media inflated the sensation about shutting down of Facebook and the letter from Mr. Roberts explaining that Mark Zuckerberg himself was behind it. Then, when the truth about the attack on social networking platforms, which was made from the clinic which professed to curing dependence on them, was revealed – it attracted even more attention. It was a fantastic spectrum of opinions; some journalists even thought that Ryan was behind the action. And I reached my major goal – people realized that social networking websites are parts of their life.

The attention from the media to this scandal seriously affected Ryan's business. Investors refused to give him money for the development of the hospital and Ryan shut it down. And when the hospital finally closed its doors, the hospital had no patients at all. Alberta also had been released. Her parents took her out of that place. They even stopped badgering her about her use of social networking. The reputation of the clinic took a hit. Some employees quit their jobs. Among them was Samantha. She always disagreed with Ryan and, I think, that scandal was the kind of final trigger for her action, not the cause. Jessica was fired because of the negligence that she made when she let me into the Ryan's office without his permission. Though, she quickly found another job and not without my help – Joshua invited her to hold the position of administrator at his club. She agreed.

And I was put on the wanted list. But at that moment I was very far from New York... from my home... and from Berry...

### *****

""It is an amazing story, Mr. Parker! And I have to tell you, that your description of these events and the events presented in investigative reports are considerably different." Mr. Jonson took some piles of sheets from a folder. "These are statements from representatives of the victims – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – with detailed claims of damages. As you can guess, Facebook incurred the biggest losses because of your rain clouds inside the premises of their data centres... literally... All these statements hold the assumption that the attack was made by a group of hackers. But Cyber Crime Investigations Agency, referring to absence of direct evidences of this fact, decided to accuse only you of perpetrating this attack. And, honestly, it allows us to avoid charging you with organized crime, and such an accusation would entail the threat of a much more serious punishment. But, Mr. Parker, I assure you, the charges against you now are serious enough."

The lawyer took several more papers from the folder.

"Are you interested in what happened immediately after your attack?" He asked. "These are copies of the interrogations of Ryan Roberts, Jessica Lewis, Steven Mitchell, Anthony Harris, Henry Hall; Samantha Collins, Alberta Martin and several other witnesses – all of them were questioned by agents during first several hours after your attack was carried out. This report gives the whole picture of how the hunting began."

I nodded.

"As soon as you switched off the anti-detection system, CCIA agents almost instantly rushed to the place where the crime was perpetrated – to the clinic. By that moment they had been going mad for several hours trying to find out what was going on with the social networking sites and who was behind it all. The agent who assigned your investigation was your "friend in waiting"– Sofia Moore. And, as you are already aware, she failed to inform anybody about her private visits to the clinic.

She first inspected the place of occurrence of the crime. At that moment, nobody knew that you were involved in the attack, and even she initially suspected the owner of the office. But Mr. Roberts had an alibi – at the time the crime took place he was at meeting with investors. Then agent Moore interrogated Miss Lewis, because she was the only person to have the key to the office. And Jessica told her how she unlocked the door for you. Your hacker's past didn't help you any, and you thus became the major suspect. So Sofia Moore concentrated on searching for you.

She interrogated Samantha Collins, having not received any word from her. Misses Collins kept silence, as she claimed, because of professional ethics, given that you weren't just a volunteer but also had completed your community service. And as far as she was appointed by the judge as the responsible supervisor of your community service. She claimed that your relationship also consisted of an educational element, through her consistent measure of advisory-psychological influence. And those measures could have been removed only by judge's order." The lawyer explained. "You know, when you mentioned that she was your friend, I didn't understand, why she refused to answer the CCIA agent's questions. After all she had a great chance to steer Sofia's perception of you in a positive direction. She, for example, could have explained your motives in a better light. But now I realize that disclosure of your real purposes wasn't possible without uncovering information about Alberta, which neither Samantha, as her psychologist, nor you, as her boyfriend, didn't want to happen. Moreover, if I understood everything correctly, you were striving to protect your girlfriend from excessive attention. The materials of the case don't contain anything, which point to her having a role in your act."

"You are right. I didn't want Alberta to be involved in this whole situation. I also didn't want her life to become property of the public. Because of that I intended to solve all problems on my own." I stated. "The fact that information about clients of the clinic and the hospital was confidential and can't be made public helped me a lot with that!"

"Agent Moore also interrogated Alberta, as your girlfriend. Sofia found out that fact from Jessica and it was proved by Anthony and Steven. The interrogation was conducted in the presence of Sean, because Alberta was under eighteen, and several of his lawyers. Judging by the protocol, they didn't allow her say anything. So agent Moore received nothing new from her – only confirmation of the existence of your relationship, that Alberta characterized as "petty intrigue"...," the lawyer said, looking trough papers.

"Did she say "petty intrigue?" I asked.

"Yeah, she said that." the lawyer responded. "But you shouldn't be upset. Obviously she was compelled to give such a characteristic of your relationships by her father in order to prevent agent Moore from asking additional questions and finding out the truth about Alberta's role in the case. I mean, she was the key to the whole story, but this fact wasn't known by anybody except those, who participated in it personally. And everybody kept silence."

"Oh, I am not upset! I thought of something different. Her father did what I expected him to do. I mean, he also didn't want to have needless attention around his daughter and himself, and because of that, he became my ally. And he didn't even understand that – he and one other person," I explained.

"And who was the second one?"

"I'll tell you about him later..." I said. "At the appropriate moment."

"Ok," Mr. Jonson said, having jotted down something in his notebook. "Your parents were also questioned. But they weren't able to add anything pertinent to the investigation. And, it seemed odd to me, when asked the question "Did you notice anything strange in Simon's behaviour the past several days?" neither your father, nor mother said anything about your attempt to marry Alberta. If Sofia had knew about it, she would have understood, that your relationship with Miss Martin wasn't just "petty intrigue" and could have realized that this odd act was a link in the chain of your actions under the title "Rescuing Alberta." But your parents didn't say anything about that. So, how did they know about necessity to keep silent?"

"It is very typical of them." I answered. "I was pretty confident, that despite any tricks the agent might throw at them, like "I just want to help your son", they wouldn't say anything superfluous. Both of them acted in the same way on interrogations when investigations for my first case took place."

"I see." the lawyer uttered. "Perhaps, it was the last action of agent Moore, which can be characterized as an attempt to catch you red-handed. She failed to go to the next circle of your communication, because none of the interrogated people gave any information, that could have led to a place for her to continue her search. I mean, she didn't know about your friend Pitt, who could have hidden you in his dormitory, nor about Joshua, the club owner, who also had a good place to hide out at. Agent Moore's task would have been much easier if all your friends had been listed on social networking sites. But you didn't have accounts there. And at the moment the only action, that she could have undertaken was to put you on the wanted list, and she did it. Of course, she later received the details of your home telephone calls and found out about Pitt and Joshua, but it took time..." Mr. Jonson took a look at the watch on his arm and pronounced, "... I think that's enough for today, let's continue tomorrow."

"Right" I agreed. The only alternative for the next day was staying with my cellmate Ben.

"Good bye, Mr. Parker! Honestly speaking, when I went here, I imagined you in as a totally different person, but you opened my eyes to your actions," the lawyer confessed, having put papers to his bag.

He got up and reached his hand out to me.

"See you tomorrow, Mr, Jonson!" I shook it.

Then the lawyer pushed the big red call button on the desk, and an officer appeared almost instantly and led me back to my cell, where I lay down on my bed. My cellmate Ben, who apparently had been missing me, again began staring at my face. I didn't react to him... I realized that sooner or later he'd start up the conversation again... and he did... twenty minutes later.

"I bet it was you! That guy who shut down Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! I even remember how angry I was, when I couldn't my check my friends' news on Facebook!"

I didn't answer him and just turned on my other side so as not to see him.

"You were even on TV! They said something about rain in the data centres... I usually don't believe the news reports. So I thought that it couldn't have been done by a hacker... I thought the social networking platform engineers screwed up, and in order to not to look like fools, they decided to blame somebody else! I really thought, when I saw reports about you, that all of that was deceive and you weren't guilty, just the patsy," Ben continued, despite my complete withdrawal from the conversation. "And now here I am sitting with you!"

### To be continued...

### #####

### Thank you for reading my book! If you like it, please share the link https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/450376 with friends!

### Also feel free to contact me - alex.a.lidd@gmail.com !

### Best regards, Alex. A. Lidd!
