Could she really have sensed something bad?

The result was that I got ready to go slowly and reluctantly. I put on a suit, then changed into jeans and a checked shirt, then thought "to hell with it" and got into my shorts and a black t-shirt with an inscription that said: "My friend was in a state of clinical death, and all he brought me from the next world was this T-shirt!" I might look like a jolly German tourist, but at least I would retain the semblance of a holiday mood in front of Gesar…

Eventually I left the building with just twenty minutes to go before the time set by the boss was up. I had to flag down a car and feel out the probability lines, and then tell the driver which streets to take so we wouldn't hit any traffic jams.

The driver accepted my instructions reluctantly-he obviously had serious doubts.

But we got there on time.

The elevators weren't working-there were guys in blue overalls loading paper sacks of cement into them. I set off up the stairs on foot, and discovered that the second floor of our office was being refurbished. There were workmen lining the walls with sheets of plasterboard, and plasterers bustling about beside them, filling in the seams. At the same time they were installing a false ceiling, which already covered the air-conditioning pipes.

So our office manager Vitaly Markovich had gotten his own way after all. He'd managed to get the boss to shell out for a full-scale renovation, and even worked out where to get the money from.

I stopped for a moment and took a look at the workmen through the Twilight. Ordinary people, not Others, as I ought to have expected. There was only one plasterer, who wasn't much to look at, whose aura seemed suspicious. But after a second I realized he was simply in love. With his own wife! Well, would you ever… there were still a few good people left in the world.