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Isaac’s bad mood had evaporated. He absorbed the carefree student atmosphere floating in the air, and tried to listen in to portions of the student’s conversations in order to recall more clearly the time when he was in college.

The only thing making him feel worried was the task ahead – finding a lead to Professor Link.

“Look, Bikie, there’s our goal, the professor himself…”

“…with a bronze head! Enough with the jokes. We need a cover story; people could ask

questions about who we are and why we’re interested in the professor.”

“That’s not a problem, Bikie! The subject of Link’s disappearance is still an event that intrigues people. We’ll introduce ourselves as student journalists from the University of Monaco.

No one will bother to check if our student journal ‘The Principality and Science’ actually exists.”

“OK, I was going to suggest something like that myself!” Bikie said with a nod, and then out of the blue he started saying how envious he felt looking at the students in England. “Just look at that building, and how much land they have here, the lawns. Football pitches and handball courts – who are they training here, sportsmen or eggheads? And those golf courses we saw on the way here!”

“And those abandoned universities we saw on the way here,” Isaac retorted.

“That’s true,” Bikie agreed. “Lots of students have given up studying. They went chasing after the money that COMA promised them, like sheep which only proves yet again…”

“… that what we intend to do is right,” said Isaac, completing the thought. “What did you mean saying COMA?”

“That’s what one should call that darned Collective Mind!”

Isaac and Bikie spent some hours searching for everything connected with Jeremy Link.

They rummaged through University publications and spoke with his colleagues and former

students, even with the cleaning lady of his study which was now a museum. They also studied the publicly accessible archives; as a result, having asked about Link to everyone they came across. There was zero new information, they already knew everything that they were told. Link had disappeared suddenly, without even completing the course he was teaching.

As they walked out of the building, a gallery of portraits of great scientists caught Isaac’s attention. The great men looked down at him: Einstein, Leonardo, Galileo and right there among them was Professor Link. He had his head inclined to one side and his expression was sardonic, with the eyes narrowed, a real person. Not a hint of glamour, even in a portrait he’d been captured just as he was in real life.

“Bikie, there ought to be other photos of Link, right? Maybe we’ll find a lead in them?”

Isaac exclaimed in sudden insight.

They looked through what they had collected again, this time studying the images

carefully. They asked students and professors about their photos. Some had photos of unofficial events, some boasted that they had “me and Link” selfies. People were glad to show the two journalists their photos with the great celebrity, and the pair tried to pick new details.

In his office in Paris, Pellegrini one more time leafed through the materials from the

scene of the incident and the interviews with witnesses. In the report drawn up by the Agency accounting department he saw that the computer had to be replaced and could not be repaired because some parts were missing. The computer had been written off as a loss as a result of the terrorist attack.

“A smashed monitor and keyboard with missing parts.” Pellegrini was delighted:

something had been lost after all! He could take another trip, an excellent pretext for a little more time by the sea at government expense. But the most important thing was that new details had surfaced and he needed to know what parts of the computer had disappeared. This nagging little point had to be clarified, didn’t it?

When Pellegrini showed up at the Collective Mind office again, he was greeted with open arms like an old friend. When he asked bluntly which parts were missing from the damaged computer, no one knew the answer. The only person with that information was the system

manager Simon Droit, and this was the third day that he hadn’t been at work.

“The fact is he’s taking treatment for cancer,” one of his female colleagues explained.

“For cancer?” Pellegrini was surprised. “And he’s been away for three days? I happen to know that cancer is treated with by a course of pills and no sick leave is required. One of my subordinates had the treatment last year.”

“Yes, that’s if you go to the doctor immediately but Simon dragged things out too long, so now he had to take a sick leave. We told him to go to the doctor and get a prescription but he kept saying: ‘I’m not going until I kill Trot’.”

“Kill Trot?” Pellegrini repeated, alarmed. “I beg your pardon?”

“He was playing an online game World of the Worlds…or something like that and he had

this sworn enemy, Trot,” Simon’s female colleague informed the commissioner only too eagerly, and from all the details she knew Pellegrini realized that she had a yen for the person she was talking about. Or else she happened to play this game too.

Eventually they managed to get the administrator on the phone and Pellegrini explained

to him that he was investigating the terrorist attack and would like to know what part was missing from the smashed computer.

“The board was smashed and a large piece was missing. I could have just ordered a new

monitor and a case but I had to replace the machine completely because of that board,” the system administrator replied blandly.

“So it was a board?”

“Yes, the base board. They used to call them mother boards. That was because the

daughter boards were attached to it.”

Pellegrini realized that now he would have to survive a flood of unnecessary information from a man who didn’t have anyone to talk to about the things that interested him, so he preferred to say goodbye.

Pellegrini arrived back in Paris from Monaco, finally closed the case and prepared the

materials to be sent to the archive. The last thing he needed now was for the trifling trips he had made to surface in an audit.

When the friends got back from London, they suddenly found themselves at a big party.

True to his style, Wolanski arranged another surprise. Although he had not planned on returning home before he received his inheritance, he came back after all and organized a party for his own birthday. There were lots of people at the villa and the guests drank and made merry to good music. Isaac and Bikie were pleasantly surprised – Peter had turned out to be less cautious than they thought at first.

Their host greeted them like old friends. Isaac apologized because they didn’t have a

present, adding that they simply hadn’t been expecting to see Peter here and they wouldn’t like to cause him any trouble.

“No problem but I do have a present for you. You’ll see it later,” Peter said with a

mysterious smile. “I thought about the security aspect and it’s fine, I’m not taking any risks.

Formally speaking there’s a month or a month and a half left until I get my inheritance – or a couple of weeks, if I’m lucky. I decided to celebrate my birthday, even though you are living here. To be honest, after Amsterdam, I miss our little group more and more. I didn’t feel like celebrating without you so I decided to come back, get a few friends over and hold a party. Go change and join in.”

The guys dumped their things, took a quick shower and joined the other guests, who

gathered around the pool. A zany old DJ was playing music, which sounded different from the

modern stuff. It was obviously the choice of a veteran of the underground, not some disc from Collective Mind music label. It was like Isaac’s good old student days, apart from the fact that the party was happening at a super-cool villa.

Isaac scanned the guests. An interesting crowd mostly from rich families with none of the Veggies. People who had enough money for the good life were in no hurry to sell their creativity although lots of people who used to be rich had gone bust together with their companies when they couldn’t compete with Einsteiner.

There were a lot of beautiful girls, all dressed very elegantly, not flashily. All were sleek, well-groomed, with lovely slim figures.

Maybe they weren’t big fans of all the latest innovations, but they definitely used the new generation of creams and other personal care products.

Isaac sipped champagne out of a fancy glass, enjoying himself as he strolled among these representatives of high society. He met a well-known TV presenter, a few girls who were famous models, and Peter and Sandrine were sitting right there, surrounded by their friends. When Peter spotted Isaac, he started making gestures that were hard to understand. Isaac eventually realized that Peter was pointing out someone sitting over to one side, behind the DJ’s console. Isaac set off in the direction indicated, but he couldn’t make out who was there through the flashing of the light organ. When he got closer, he realized what the “present” was that Peter set up for him. He had invited Michelle Blanche.

Isaac was totally delighted. If only there were more Peters in this life! He turned back towards the birthday boy’s table and gave him a big thumbs-up sign! Peter smiled and replied with the same gesture.

Michelle was very beautiful with her hair gathered into a simple ponytail, the minimum

of makeup and just a touch of lipstick on her plump lips. Small earrings with no watch or bracelets. The modest, short little black dress exposed her sharp little knees. Her outfit was completed by lacquered sandals with high heels. Everything seemingly so restrained, but she looked stunning.

“Hi, Michelle! It seems that this semi-darkness adds some mystique to your beauty, mind if I join you?” Having drunk a glass of champagne after his journey, Isaac was in exactly the right condition – not yet drunk, but already feeling confident.

“Hi there! No, I don’t. How are you getting on, Isaac?” Michelle moved from the center

of the sofa to one side, so that Isaac could sit down.

“I’m good. Everything’s going fine,” Isaac said and kissed the girl on both cheeks. He

pointed to Michelle’s almost empty glass. “Maybe I could bring you another juice?”

“Yes please, only instead of juice, bring me a Bellini.”

“How about I bring you a different cocktail? You’ll like it. It’s based on champagne too.

I’m an ex-barman after all, and I have cocktails that I invented myself.”

“Alright, but only if it’s not too strong.”

“Well, they are just a little bit strong, but one or two won’t cause any problems.”

Isaac came back carrying two at once: one was of a bright golden color and the other

hand a bronze shimmer to it.

Michelle tried the golden one first.

“Whoa, that tastes good! What’s in it? Wait, let me guess… Champagne, that’s clear

enough. Something orangey and maybe something with coffee?” she added, and then sniffed the second glass: “And this one smells of coconut.”

“I won’t tell you the ingredients, or you won’t drink it! But you’ve guessed most of the smells,” said Isaac, smiling. He was dying to boast about the recipe he had invented, but restrained himself. “I’ll tell you, but first let’s see if you can figure it out yourself.”

“Well, the coconut flavor is clear enough. It’s Malibu. I’ll have another think about the rest. So you don’t just invent cunning little devices, but cocktails as well?” Michelle asked with a disarming smile.

“How do you know that I’m an inventor?”

“Peter told me. He said he had a pair of interesting characters living at his place, talented inventors. He said one them was an avid biker, and I’d seen the other one a couple of times. It was obviously you he meant.”

Isaac flushed with embarrassment and pleasure. It was a good thing Peter hadn’t

introduced them as caretakers keeping an eye on his house.

“Yes, I’m an inventor.” That had a proud ring, and Isaac thrust out his chest. “And what do you do?”

“I wanted to be a designer. I was pretty good at it, and I developed a few fairly promising concepts. Unfortunately it didn’t grow into a business; it’s more of a hobby.”

“Why?”

“Einsteiner. They turn out excellent design concepts for quite low prices. It’s hard to compete with them. It’s possible, but the market has slumped badly. There’s no financial motivation. It would be more accurate just to say I do creative work.”

“That’s not so very terrible for you; after all you’re fairly…”

“Rich?”

“Well, yes. Well-fixed, you don’t need money all that badly.”

“Not strictly for financial reasons, no, but when your ideas die without ever being born, it’s painful. I want to show what I can do. Show that I’m not just…”

“Devastatingly beautiful,” Isaac put in.

“Thank you. To show that I’m not just another pretty face. Apart from a diploma in

design I got top marks in many exact sciences.”

“Oh! Heavy! I remember you have a high creativity quotient, but exact sciences – that’s even heavier.”

“But how do you know Peter? Quite an unusual person you are. Peter is no fool either,

your friend is an inventor, and so are you. You came bouncing up to me that time with some kind of slogans. You surrounded yourself with creative people. Have you got a special nose for them?”

“Something like that. People like that fascinate me.”

Narrowing her lids, Michelle examined Isaac, finished her cocktail, put the glass down on the table and said in an affectedly stern voice:

“Now, tell me what you’ve dosed me with…some kind of love potion?”

“Almost. Unfortunately it’s just Brut champagne with Malibu and Cointreau in it.”

“Delicious. Champagne and liqueurs. You villain! And what is it called?”

“Lucky Blonde.”

“Ohhhh, is your girlfriend a blonde?”

“No, no,” he protested. “I haven’t got a girlfriend, it’s just a name. I thought it sounded nice!” he said, deciding not to mention that he really had named the cocktail in honor of Anna, his undivided university love. Her name on Instagram was luckyblonde, so he chose it as the title of his creation.