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  So any other day we might have finally kissed and made up, then indulged in some angry, desperate, mind-boggling lovemaking when all you could feel was that the two of you had become one, united in your passion.

  This time, however, I knew: this was the end of the line.

  It hadn’t happened overnight. Whatever feelings she’d had for me — whether love, friendship, respect or adoration — they had been fading, dropping a point each day, every day, until today their count had finally arrived at zero. She’d run out of love and friendship; she didn’t have any respect left for me and as for adoration... just forget it.

  A Jeep pulled up at some distance from the house. A young guy climbed out, took Yanna’s suitcase from her and put it in the trunk. They exchanged a hug and a kiss (on the cheek!). He opened the passenger door for her. Yanna got in, and the car drove off.

  A figure appeared out of the shadows. “Fancy a drink?”

  I looked up sharply. It was Alik.

  He must have taken my staring back at him as a yes because he offered me a beer can.

  I downed half of it. A new system message appeared promptly, informing me of a drop in both agility and perception and a slight rise in confidence and charisma.

  He offered me a light, then lit his own cigarette. “Easy, man! Wassup?” he nodded at the front door.

  “Nothing,” I drew deeply on my cigarette, then added against my better judgement as I exhaled, “My wife’s just left me.”

  Your Reputation with Romuald “Alik” Zhukov has improved!

  Current Reputation: Amicability 5/60

  I started to laugh, louder and louder, until I dissolved in a bout of hysterics.

  Amicability! With a local bum! Was it because I’d been honest with him? Or because of the beer and smokes we’d shared?

  Whatever. It was hilarious, anyway. Only a few hours ago, my wife, the love of my life who’d been with me through thick and thin, had the same reputation reading with me as this street thug with whom I’d barely exchanged a few words.

  Had this been a game, I might have thought I had some kind of stat booster or a premium account which offered fast-track Reputation leveling. And had this indeed been the case...

  Alik gave me a hearty slap on the shoulder, ignoring my bout of hysteria. “Happens. So she left you, big deal. You can get her back if you really want to. Take it easy, man.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so,” I replied absent-mindedly as another thought struck me.

  A stat booster. Why not? Because if it were so, then...

  My head boomed, replaying a single song snippet over and over again,

  “...how can I describe

  The TV shows running through this brain box of mine

  World, I’m back,

  You’d better watch your back

  You wanted my head

  Too bad

  I'm showing you signs of life”[1]

  I could get Yanna back.

  Enough wallowing in self-pity. Enough wasting my time.

  “Thanks for the beer, man,” I shook Alik’s hand. “And for the advice. I’m gonna go for a walk. I need some fresh air.”

  Your Reputation with Romuald “Alik” Zhukov has improved!

  Current Reputation: Amicability 10/60

  “I can go with you if you want,” he offered.

  Was it the alcohol? Or the stat booster? I really needed to find that out. Time was an issue.

  “Next time, man,” I handed him the unfinished beer and left the pavilion.

  I walked out onto the street and hurried along while reaching for my earbuds and connecting them to my phone. I put some music on and started jogging, breathing in the springtime night air infused with the aromas of early blossoms, budding leaves and exhaust fumes.

  I threaded my way among the passersby, leaping over pools of rainwater, past parked cars and apartment buildings, block after block, stopping occasionally to catch my breath.

  It started raining. I kept jogging, catching raindrops with my open mouth and wiping my forehead with my sleeve as I ran.

  I only stopped when I reached the city limits. My sneakers were soaking wet. My lungs were on fire. My legs were giving way under me.

  No idea how long I’d been running. The rain had long stopped. The sky was getting lighter. I could hear dogs barking in nearby cottages.

  And me? Well, I was grinning!

  Your Stamina has improved!

  +1 to Stamina

  Current Stamina, 4

  I set my backpack on the curb and slumped down on it, then reached for the soggy pack of cigarettes. I took my time lighting up and smoking it, then lit up a new cigarette with the first one.

  Cleansed by my run through the nighttime city, my lungs and blood greedily soaked up the new dose of nicotine. It went to my head. My legs felt weak. New debuff messages kept flooding in. Still I kept smoking, trying to remember exactly how it felt. The foul taste, the slackened muscles...

  I scrambled back to my feet and staggered over to a trash can, crumpling the remaining cigarettes in my hand. I shoved them in the trash, then did the same to the lighter.

  Chapter Six. New Level

  “You could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it doesn’t exist!”

  J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  LATER, I COULD barely remember how I’d gotten back home after my night run. I’d walked along the city streets, then hitched a ride with some early-morning gypsy cab. I must have fallen asleep; I remember rummaging through my pockets for any loose change as I hadn’t had enough to pay him. I remember peeling off my soggy clothes and dropping them on the bedroom floor. I then collapsed onto the bed and pressed my face to Yanna’s pillow.

  Just before falling asleep, I somehow remembered to set the alarm for 9.30 the next morning. I had a doctor’s appointment at 11 a.m.

  When the alarm awoke me, I was about to hit snooze, then remembered the appointment and shot out of bed.

  “Shot out” was probably a bit of an overstatement. I’d indeed sprung out of bed, then promptly collapsed on top of it. Diagnosis: an acute case of Phil-itosis.

  My whole body hurt as if some vicious warlock had cast several DOTs on me, flattened me repeatedly under a press, then thrown me into the path of a herd of Siberian mammoths.

  Trying to move slowly, I somehow made it to the bathroom. I took a shower, gingerly touching my smarting body which felt completely dead after last-night’s marathon. After an equally careful shave and a cautious tickle of the toothbrush, I felt marginally better.

  My chest groaned with the sense of loss. I missed Yanna something rotten. I missed her voice and her “Breakfast’s ready!” My hands kept reaching for the phone, desperate to dial her number.

  Still, I forced myself to stay calm. I wasn’t ready yet. Nor was she. By calling her now, I could ruin everything.

  To get my mind off it, I decided to do a bit of Strength leveling. A few sit-ups and pushups might do just fine.

  God was I ever wrong. I managed a few half-hearted sit-ups, but the pain in my legs was just too much. My creaking knees were killing me.

  And as for pushups... the moment I tried to bend my arms, they gave under me and I collapsed to the floor. Luckily, my belly acted as a shock absorber.

  I made myself some coffee and walked out onto the balcony. Mechanically my hand reached for my cigarettes but found none.

  Unlike all my previous attempts to quit, this time I wasn’t upset by their absence. If anything, I felt relieved. I stood on the balcony, breathing in lungfuls of fresh air and washing it down with hot, strong coffee.

  Having received my coffee buff, I put on some clean clothes and hurried to my doctor’s appointment. I still had some money on my bank card — enough for his fee and also hopefully for any tests the Doc deemed necessary.

  She did. The doctor turned out to be a pretty young blonde who didn’t bat an eyelid at my rambling story. She asked m
e a long list of questions, then sent me to have an MRI of the brain which cost an arm and a leg.

  “Once you’re done, come back to my office with the images,” she said. “The way you describe it, it could be anything. I can’t diagnose you based on your symptoms alone.”

  “Thanks,” I said, peering at the system message hovering over her head. “Thank you, Olga. Am I to come back to see you once I have the images?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Very well. Oh, and one more thing. You’re very pretty.”

  Suppressing an embarrassed smile, she pointed at the door.

  Yeah right! She could point at the door all she wanted but the system knew better!

  I smiled back and walked out. The smile still hovered on my face as I contemplated the system message I’d just received,

  Your Reputation with Olga “Lola” Shvedova has improved!

  Current Reputation: Indifference 5/30

  This system didn’t mess about. Five more compliments, and we might become friends.

  I was lucky: the clinic had its own MRI equipment which saved me a trip downtown. I had to wait for my turn but I didn’t mind that. I could use a pause. I needed to have a good think and decide what to do next.

  I used the chance to check my health points. They seemed to have grown a bit. The bar now read 73,17102% and kept creeping up. This was the best anti-smoking ad I’d ever seen.

  It looked like in order to get Yanna back, I might need to first win her love — and her respect. This wasn’t a question of whether I wanted to be with her or not. I needed her. Even though my initial feelings for her had somewhat faded over these four years, my love for her had only grown stronger.

  And as for winning her respect... I was no expert in women but I had this nagging feeling that this time mere promises and declarations of love wouldn’t be enough. I could find out where she lived now, of course. I could send her flowers at work. I could bombard her with texts, stalk her on social media, keep calling her number, shower her with rose petals and beg her forgiveness on a reality TV show.

  Wouldn’t work. It might have, once. But not now.

  Had she had some feelings left for me — yes, maybe. But this mysterious game system didn’t lie. What Yanna felt for me was animosity. Which must have had something to do with my being a total jerk, passive, disinterested and perfectly happy with the current state of affairs.

  “You’re such a loser really,” she used to tell me only half-jokingly. “At your age, you still don’t have a job. You don’t have a car. You don’t even have a place of your own! You’re thirty years old and you still sponge off your wife, playing games all night long...”

  So she hadn’t been joking, then. That should have been the first clue. If only I’d realized it then! But no — the only thing that had worried me at the time was whether I could become the server’s top rogue, beating some guy called Nurro to the title.

  The answer was “no” to both. I hadn’t become the top rogue nor had I managed to keep Yanna.

  “Panfilov? Come in, please,” a voice called from the MRI room.

  The fifteen minutes spent motionless in the cramped confines of an MRI capsule echoing with spooky sounds is every claustrophobic’s biggest nightmare. Then I had to wait another half-hour for my results. Finally, they handed me an envelope containing images of my gray matter from every possible angle.

  Envelope in hand, I returned to the doctor’s office.

  I reached for the door handle, about to walk in, when a male voice protested from behind me,

  “Where do you think you’re going? How about waiting your turn?”

  My hand still in mid-air, I turned around. A burly man, bald-headed with a wrestler’s neck, sat on one of the chairs lining the opposite wall.

  A few other patients next to him voiced their indignation,

  “What a cheek!” an old lady in a bright-colored headscarf shook a disapproving head.

  “You hear what he said? Come and take your place in line,” a gum-chewing woman next to her advised rather threateningly. Her plump high-cheekboned face was plastered with a thick layer of makeup.

  “I’m not here to see the doctor!” I tried to explain. “I only need to give this to her! I have an appointment!”

  “So do we,” a frail old man with a goatee protested in a passionate whisper.

  “Don’t you get fresh with us!” the plump lady raised her voice.

  “Right,” the burly man stood up. “You heard it. Come and take your place in line. Don’t make me lose it with you.”

  I could understand them. Still, I wasn’t going to wait in line twice for the same appointment. All I needed to do was give her the envelope. The appointment times were all screwed up, anyway. I’d had to wait an hour for mine even though I’d arrived on time.

  A chain of new system messages flooded my field of vision.

  Oh, no.

  Your Reputation with Anatoly Magaradze has decreased!

  Current Reputation: Animosity 20/30

  Your Reputation with Aigul Ramadanova has decreased!

  Current Reputation: Animosity 20/30

  Your Reputation with Violette Ryzhova has decreased!

  Current Reputation: Animosity 20/30

  Your Reputation with Mark Zalessky has decreased!

  Current Reputation: Animosity 20/30

  I needed a break. Obediently I stepped away from the door and took my place in line after the frail old man. All the chairs were already taken, so I just leaned against the wall next to him.

  I met the burly man’s gaze. Aha.

  Anatoly Magaradze

  Age: 44

  Current status: truck driver

  Social status level: 9

  Class: long-haul truck driver. Level: 7

  Married

  Wife: Irina Magaradze

  Children: none

  Criminal record: yes

  I spent some time focusing on each of the patients, retrieving the information I needed and planning my next move. It would be terribly unfair to waste my time waiting in line, especially if the images proved there was nothing wrong with me. In which case, I’d have to finally work out the mysterious game’s interface, retrieve my stats and come up with a new leveling strategy. One that would allow me to get Yanna back.

  Still, I knew very well what I needed to do in order to get her back. I had to find a job and earn my own living. Pretty obvious, I know. Still, that would be the most meaningful sign of my being on the mend. I needed to lose some weight, anyway. The beer diet and sedentary lifestyle had done my waistline — or the absence thereof — no favors.

  So what did I know about crowd control? First, you had to surprise them. After that, you had to shock them. Then they’d be eating out of your hand, compliant and perfectly malleable.

  And this wasn’t even a crowd but only a group of four people united by one goal: to see the doctor in their due time without letting an aggressive intruder jump the line.

  The fact that they’d acted so unanimously against me gave me some hope that my idea just might work.

  I grabbed at my head. My knees slackened. Slowly I slid to the floor, making unintelligible sounds to attract their attention.

  “Is he all right?” asked the gum-chewing lady, a.k.a. Mrs. Aigul Ramadanova.

  “Yeah yeah,” the burly Mr. Magaradze laughed. “Pull the other one!”

  “Mmmmhooomhooo,” I enunciated, trying to sound forlorn and desperate.

  “God save us,” the old Mrs. Violette Ryzhova made the sign of the cross. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!”

  “Ishnu'alaaaaahhhh,” I groaned, switching to the Darnassian language of Night Elves.

  “He’s a demon!” the old Violette pointed her gnarly finger at me. “I assure you! Lord Jesus...”

  “Will you please stop your nonsense?” the truck driver interrupted her. “Hey you! Are you okay?”

  I didn’t reply. Slowly I rose, sliding my back up the wall.
<
br />   My knee caps crunched clearly in the silence.

  I raised my right hand and pointed at the old woman,

  “You! Violette Ryzhova! You’re a faithful servant of God! Hearken unto me!”

  The woman kept crossing herself and whispering prayers, unable to take her eyes off me. She looked almost crippled with fear.

  I turned and pointed at the other woman. “You! Aigul Ramadanova! Hearken unto me!”

  I turned again. “You!” my index finger very nearly poked the truck driver’s forehead. “Anatoly Magaradze, listen to me!”

  “And you!” I turned my attention to the frail old man. “Mark Zalessky, sir! I want you to pay attention!”

  Ramadanova’s mouth opened. The gum dropped to the floor.

  The old woman’s hand froze mid-air in an unfinished sign of the cross.

  The old gentleman seemed to be dangerously close to a stroke.

  The burly Magaradze was the only one who hadn’t bought it. “What’s that for a circus show?”

  “Aren’t you fed up with trucking?” I asked him in my normal voice. “Your wife Irina must miss you something awful.”

  I must have touched on a tender spot. He didn’t say anything, just clenched his teeth.

  “I’m very sorry,” I said, clutching my head with both hands. “I have this problem... I can see right through all of you! I don’t think my head can take it... Will you please let me see the doctor? Please?”

  “I don’t mind,” Mrs. Ramadanova hurried to agree before I could reveal any more sensitive information about her.