Chương 10: A Very Awkward Coffee Date with the Government

Soren did not change his mind. When the waiter approached the table, he already knew very well what to order to accompany his conversation with the Director.

"I want the seasonal infusion." Soren's conviction when stating his order to the waiter clearly showed that he had no doubts about what he wanted to drink, but deep down, he had no idea what that infusion was.

"Beautiful choice, this week's seasonal infusion is jasmine," the waiter replied very calmly, hiding his admiration for someone not drinking coffee first thing in the morning.

"Perfect, that's exactly it," Soren said calmly, with a touch of pride in what he was ordering, as if another flavor like chamomile or lemon balm could matter to him and make a difference in his choice. The waiter stepped away from the table, and the Director's coffee remained untouched between them. The cup was personalized with a message that someone had the brilliant idea to print. The Director turned the cup toward herself with her hand, and when Soren noticed, he managed to read: "Keep Calm and Drink Coffee."

Despite its loneliness, the coffee's steam still had the strength to rise in patterns that probably meant nothing, but to Soren, they seemed symbolic; those curves moved with a certain coordination. Regardless of everything, there was no going back; the choice had already been made.

"I will be direct with you, Mr. Vonesdar. I don't have time for games, I prefer to be clear when dealing with matters, and you don't strike me as someone who appreciates those types of games either."

"You know, Director, I actually do appreciate some games. I was once a chess champion, and in the past, I've also participated in some Go tournaments. I like anything with very clear rules."

"Very well then, Mr. Vonesdar, let me establish my rules." The Director opened her bag and placed the tablet between them.

"Three nights ago, you closed a Class B fissure in 2. 2 seconds, and the System failed to classify you a total of 313 times. My team and I checked your background, and incredibly, your past returned absolutely nothing: no records, no history of any kind, and no proof that you existed before 2021."

"You know, Director, I confirm those facts, but I am a rather private person and over these last three years I've had a very busy routine, so I just haven't had time to deal with those things yet."

"No, no, my dear. Do not try to delude me with that sweet talk. You are much more than all that; if you had wanted to deal with those matters, you would have resolved them already." It was then that the waiter approached the table, and in the center of his tray was the aforementioned seasonal infusion. The aroma of jasmine was immediately felt between the two through its hot steam.

"As promised, here it is," the waiter said.

"Enjoy." Soren picked up the cup and took a sip of the tea. And against all expectations, the infusion, despite being boiling hot, was really good. Soren placed the cup back on the table and looked the Director in the eyes.

"What do you want, Director?" Tanaka touched the tablet, as it was the exact moment to unlock it.

"First, I want to understand who I am dealing with, and only then will we see what I have to propose to you." Soren nodded.

"First understand and only then the proposal, very well." The Director opened the file on the tablet, and on the screen appeared his photograph in his employee uniform, surrounded by classification attempts that all ended in error.

"As you can imagine, our System has never failed in classifying any being in Japan; it has classified everything from the highest-level adventurers to transcendent beings. Much less has it failed to classify a convenience store employee. It has never failed in categorizing something that operates within its parameters."

"Well, perhaps I don't operate within the System's parameters," Soren's eyes emitted a smile as he said it.

"You know? That is precisely what worries me." The Director slid her finger across the screen and brought up another document.

"We found some rather old references. Something called the Container Program. These references are all sealed, but the fragments we recovered suggest they are entities that predate the System itself." Soren picked up the cup and, this time, took a large gulp of the tea. Unlike the Director's forgotten coffee, he momentarily forgot its temperature and had to contain his facial expression to avoid showing his distress in public.

"Who gave you access to those files?" Soren asked.

"I am the Director of the World Integration Division of Tokyo. I have clearance to consult anything you can imagine. Even things that would surprise you, Mr. Vonesdar." Her eyes met his. They were firm, authoritative, and calculating, leaving no room for any doubt. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Now the question is whether you are going to help me understand, or if my analysts and I will have to dig deeper," the Director said at a rather slow pace, so that each word would be fully understood.

"And what if I let you dig deeper? What happens? Will you strike oil?"

"Enough with the cheap jokes. If we dig deeper, I might find things you'd prefer to keep buried, Mr. Vonesdar. Things that might explain why a man with no past in Tokyo works the night shift at a convenience store. Instead of..." Tanaka began to twirl her right hand in a vague gesture, like someone waiting for him to finish her sentence.

"Anyway, whatever someone with your capabilities should be doing right at this moment," the Director completed, given her guest's silence. As the conversation progressed amidst astonishment, cheap jokes, and a lot of tension, Café Lunem was beginning to fill up with customers. A murmur was developing across the room; some faces looked sideways at those two, exchanging rumors with their hands over their mouths so no one would catch their conspiracy theories.

On the other side, the woman with the laptop continued typing insanely at a frantic pace. Next to her, the man remembered he had to turn another page of the newspaper, and with the same pattern, stuck his nose right back into the next page. But at the other table, the Japanese cheesecake remained intact; Soren realized there had been some sort of preparation error there, because that agent kept glaring at the pastry—apparently, someone in the organization didn't know he was allergic to dairy.

What a beautiful staged performance, Soren analyzed those three while looking through the reflection of the mirrors on the café wall.

"I was the one who chose the convenience store," he said while lowering his gaze to the Director's face.

"Really? But why a store?" The Director leaned forward a little to try to hear even better what the boy was saying.

"Because the store is a quiet space. When I am working, no one asks me difficult and inconvenient questions. And because humanity invented instant ramen, which, to me, is the best gastronomic invention humanity has ever seen, and I wanted to appreciate that historic achievement right here in Tokyo, living a peaceful life, Director."

"That is not a decent answer!" The Director detested the justification and began to raise her voice.

"It's the only one you'll get. What else can I say? I want an anonymous, discreet life; I am already tired of saving the world." Silence settled between the two. Tanaka's coffee stopped giving off those symbolic waves of steam, and she continued without touching it throughout the entire conversation. Inside that room, there was no coffee cup more abandoned than Tanaka's.

"Then I will tell you what I know." The Director rested her elbows on the table and intertwined her fingers.

"And then I will tell you what I want from you."

"Do me that favor, Director. I am all ears."

"Regarding what I know: you are quite old despite your youthful appearance, quite possibly older than the System itself. I also know that you are powerful enough to frighten classification algorithms composed of the best Japanese technology. I know that you were hiding in Tokyo for three years, and apparently, your much-beloved hideout finally came to an end the moment you saved that family in the parking lot in front of your workplace." Tanaka leaned forward slightly, with an even more serene and threatening look.

"What I do not know is if you are a threat to Japan, Mr. Vonesdar."

"I am not, Director." Soren concentrated all his energy to answer her with the utmost tranquility.

"Then please do me the favor of convincing me." He lowered his head slightly and pondered all the options he could choose on his personal interface. At that moment, he could get up and leave the café, disappearing once again to any part of the planet. He had done it before, with a teleportation superpower where all it took was a snap of his fingers.

Abandoning this identity as a night-shift employee and assuming another—such as a gas station attendant in Texas, or working at a market selling fish in Sydney—were certainly other simpler and less complicated options. And in doing so, he would let the passing centuries erase his trail.

But that meant abandoning MinouseMart; it meant abandoning his modest apartment with all those cheap and peculiar features, like the crack in the ceiling that already symbolized something to him, and thus, abandoning the strange balance he had found in his routine in Tokyo. That was something Soren did not wish to lose. He had always liked appreciating different types of food, and he had also acquired a taste for this life of being an ordinary person.

But what he could not accept was abandoning his greatest delicacy, the best he had ever tasted during centuries of existence. And now also the nosy kid who saw too much, Eva; the kid was different from everything else. A slightly meddlesome child—put nicely, of course—who remained interested in knowing more, whether he was around or not.

The best path was precisely the one that looked like cooperation and collaboration with the WID, to perhaps face a reality that could seemingly be uncomfortable, because leaving a completely banal entity, which Soren appreciated for its simplicity, was what he did not want.

"I am tired," Soren said. Tanaka blinked as she pulled her head back.

"Excuse me? I didn't understand what you meant."

"Director, I have been alive for a long time. I've seen empires rise and fall like turning on a water tap and turning it off right after. I've seen humans die in different ways, from black magic, in combat with dragons, even over arguments about coffee preparation techniques, or even over arguing whether to go to one restaurant or another. I have been very powerful, feared, adored, hunted, and hated."

Soren picked up the cup again, this time taking a moderate sip, even though the tea was no longer as hot as at the beginning.

"I am tired. At this stage of my life, what I really want is to stock shelves with ramen and potato chips, to fill fridges with beers, liquors, and energy drinks. You can call it retirement, if you want. I learned to appreciate the beauty of living in a small apartment with highly questionable plumbing, do you understand?! Where sometimes even the floor itself makes you doubt its structural credibility. I want to exist in a way that doesn't demand me to be anything other than someone completely ordinary."

"So is that why you suppressed your presence for three years, Mr. Vonesdar?"

"Yes, it was 1094 days, basically because of that."

"So you interrupted a sequence of fasting, or rather, of not using any of your superpowers, to save a family you had never seen, and to save a child who asked for help."

"Yes, for a child who asked for help." Soren shrugged and sighed.

"There are things that are above our personal preferences, Director." Tanaka didn't say another word; she observed him for a long moment. He felt he was being observed, and with total unconcern, he let the Director observe him continuously, maintaining a neutral expression and a relaxed posture, as if it were a conversation between neighbors on a balcony. Let her see whatever she wanted to see. What could she possibly see? A tired man? How could she consider me a threat? And to be fair, this wasn't entirely a lie.