// April 16, ten o’clock in the evening //

“Who thought of giving me this living gift?” The young guy leaned back in his chair with an appraising look on his face. “Have you forgotten that I’m allergic to animals? Put it away.” He waved his hand at someone.

Two large guards in suits immediately appeared from the left, one already reached for my elbow.

“Wait.” The man to the right of the hero of the occasion raised his palm in a warning gesture.

The security guards froze, but I already knew which way was the exit. I was just gathering my strength, cherishing the last precious seconds of a peculiar ‘rest’ on the floor.

“Klaster, that collar around her neck... It’s not what I think, is it?”

The gray-haired older man squinted his eyes, even leaned forward towards me, a mere mortal girl. “I’m not sure, but it’s very similar...”

But I couldn’t hear any more words, I was staring at the man to the right of the young guy with the black eyes. He was ordering people around, and everything was stirring, and time sped up, but not for me.

I looked at him, the man who had ruined my life, who had driven my mother to her death, who had driven me to thoughts of suicide. And I. Silently. Hated. Him.

Rizor Cirkul, the president despised by many, so here we met.

But my hateful stare was ignored, and the gazes of the others present were fixed on my neck, or rather, on some kind of ‘garrotte’ that I couldn’t see. I reached out with my hand to touch the thing that was making it difficult for me to even turn my head.

“Don’t you dare touch,” the president warned and froze himself, exhaling nervously.

The gray-haired man sitting next to the head of the country rose heavily from his chair, grabbed his cane placed next to the armrest, and walked slowly toward me. I tensed, for it was a first for me to be completely naked in front of so many people. And I hoped it would never happen again.

I cringed as the face of the man with the stick approached, his breath immediately stirring my hair. My nose tickled, as the stranger reeked of sour tobacco and whiskey.

I was just about to move away when the man grasped my chin painfully, tilting my head back until my ears barely cracked.

“Don’t fidget.” He was busily examining my ‘piece of jewelry’, which I only now realized was very heavy.

Nothing happened for a couple of heartbeats, it was like everyone was frozen, waiting.

“What is it, Klaster?” Rizor Cirkul couldn’t take it anymore.

I bit my lip, trying to endure the discomfort and the pain by thinking about anything to keep the physical sensation out of my mind – like the fact that I’d seen this old man somewhere before.

The familiar stranger looked up at my face, met my gaze, and his hand trembled. A moment later, the pressure on my chin eased, and then it was gone.

“This is it. The latest development, a model called the Siri-22,” he exhaled intermittently. 

And it finally dawned on me where I’d seen this elderly gentleman.

Klaster Asanor was the Minister of Defense, a friend and an advisor to President Cirkul. He appeared in the news almost more often than the president himself, but mostly in the tabloids, endlessly covering the scandals of the prominent family he was part of.

“I see. We’ll talk at home. Let’s wrap it up.” The president stood up, giving a sign to the guards.