What does a typical English morning look like? What associations come to mind when thinking of this time of day in such a colorful country?
A cup of tea, perhaps? Certainly!
People rushing to work amidst congested roads? Of course!
And the weather? Overcast, naturally, with the faint scent of night rain—that indescribable but pleasant smell of wet pavement.
Stereotypical and cliché? Perhaps, but stereotypes don't appear out of thin air, do they?
And so, another morning in Liverpool passed without anything particularly noteworthy. Only an increased windiness, even in the height of summer, forced passersby to don light windbreakers and summer coats. But this was England, after all!
The weather was, to put it mildly, unremarkable, but that did nothing to dampen the desire for a cup of coffee with a little treat—a sort of light second breakfast. And for such cravings, there were always plenty of small cafes and diners to go around.
Imagine: a small coffee shop with an open terrace right by the famous River Mersey. The aroma of coffee beans wafted through the air—one can't drink tea all the time, can they?—and about a quarter of the outdoor tables were occupied. A wonderfully simple and mundane scene!
A young man sat at a solitary table: a slicked-back blonde, clean-shaven and dressed to the nines in a light gray suit. Before him stood a paper cup of americano, and on a porcelain plate sat a small piece of Napoleon cake, already half-eaten. The man himself was buried in his phone, occasionally laughing and smiling.
The picture was simple and clear: a young, promising employee decided to take a break. What could be unusual about that?
But the unusual, as everyone knows, always arrives without warning.
"Trouble with work!" a cocky boyish voice rang out in the man's ear.
Confused, the man tore his gaze away from his phone and looked at the boy who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
A rogue smile played on the kid's face, and his silvery-gray eyes seemed to look right through the man. The boy's clothes left much to be desired, sporting well-made but obvious patches, and there were traces of untidiness on his face—the kind of marks that betrayed the adventurous nature of children ready to play anywhere and under any conditions. Still, the charming freckles and confident eyes added a layer of charisma.
An awkward smile crept onto the man's face. He gave a barely perceptible nod, glanced toward the cashier who hadn't noticed anything, and returned to his phone as if he hadn't been addressed at all.
"With your father! A hundred percent it's problems with your father!" the boy continued into his ear without hesitation. "With the higher-ups and with work!"
"Kid!" the man snapped, unable to restrain his irritation. "What do you want?"
"Not quite the right question, mister!" the boy chuckled. "What I can give—that's what you should have asked!"
The man let out a breath, feeling his morning turn more and more gray. He hastily pulled five pounds from his wallet and showed them to the boy.
"Will this be enough?"
The bill vanished so quickly the man only had time to blink. Meanwhile, the boy's completely unperturbed face practically screamed that he had nothing to do with it!
The brat then had the audacity to sit down opposite him and begin staring even more intently!
"Who even are you?"
"To you, I'll be... well, you can call me Nostradamus, I don't really care," the boy said, pulling a deck of thick, wide cards from his jacket and beginning a skillful shuffle. "I'll predict your fate, and you'll even pay me extra for it. Everyone wins!"
"God," the young man said, closing his eyes. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm just... I don't believe in any of this esoteric stuff, especially when someone is so obviously trying to scam me!"
"Since when did earning a living with one's unique talent become a crime?" the boy asked with an ironic smile. "And even powerful prophets need to eat, I assure you. I simply... didn't hide the obvious."
"Powerful prophets?" the man asked, eyeing him skeptically. "You?"
"Was I wrong in my first prediction?"
"Kid..." he didn't immediately find the words. "Most people have problems with their fathers, work, and bosses—that says absolutely nothing."
"So, you want specifics, eh?" the boy said thoughtfully. "You're a journalist."
"What?" he asked, surprised.
"You're about twenty-three, unmarried, not in a relationship," the boy continued under the man's increasingly astonished gaze. "You recently graduated, but managed to snag a position beyond your experience. Because of connections, of course—what else? But you..." the boy watched the man's reaction closely. "You've always been irritated by the gossip of envious colleagues. You've always felt you were doing the job a hundred percent, but... human nature can't be bought with hard work and loyalty alone."
"Okay..." the man nodded, impressed. "Listen, that's actually amazing! A Conan Doyle fan? This is..."
"This is a gift!" the boy interrupted soulfully. "A gift I'm going to use to make a ton of money!"
The boy said this with such enthusiasm that the man believed him for a second, forgetting that he was technically being hustled.
The man chuckled, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Fine," he drawled. "Let's say you haven't just read too many books on deduction—though that in itself is impressive, kid! Let's say you really are good at reading people. What next? You said it yourself—specifics."
"And that's where the fun begins," the boy lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Because specifics aren't 'who you are,' but 'what will happen to you.'"
He pulled one card from the deck and, without showing it, placed it face down on the table.
"Look here, Mr. Journalist. In..." he squinted, as if listening to something inside himself, "in three days, you'll have a conversation with an older man. A man in his late forties, balding. You respect him, but you're a bit afraid of him."
"This is England!" the man exploded. "You can't throw a stone without hitting a balding man in his late forties! And I have conversations like that every day!"
"No," the boy replied calmly. "This is one you'll remember. Because after it, you'll either shoot straight to the top... or start looking for a new job."
The man frowned.
"You probably think I'm just taking a wild guess, right? But actually..." the boy pointed a finger at his own temple. "You've already started sorting through names in your head: The department head? The editor-in-chief?"
The man remained silent. A very telling silence.
Simon noticed this and smirked inwardly.
Pierre-Simon Laplace had always been a staunch supporter of the idea that a head was for thinking, not just eating. And, without any undue modesty, he had to admit he knew how to use his head. And he didn't just know how; he loved it!
Ninety percent of what the man sitting opposite him guessed was correct. Yes, Simon was a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle's work. And yes, most of these conclusions were based on pure deduction. After all, what young careerist would spend his lunch hour alone? A careerist who has problems with his colleagues!
But...
Not everything can be read through pure deduction—yes, Sherlock Holmes lies about a lot.
However, where one cannot "read," one can simply... "guess." Yes, it's that simple.
Simon possessed certain special qualities that he wasn't afraid to use, and a savage, practically supernatural intuition was one of them.
If a random person thought of a number, Simon could guess it correctly nine times out of ten on pure hunch. And to be fair, the range wouldn't be the "standard" zero to ten, but zero to a hundred.
A sharpened mind, coupled with incredible intuition, always yielded the desired result. Well... almost always.
"But the most important thing is what the conversation will be about," the boy said, gathering the cards with a masterly flourish and tucking them back into his jacket. "And, as in most cases, it will be about money. Big money, Mr. Journalist. But... you will turn it down."
The man's frown deepened. He didn't notice how he had subconsciously leaned forward, catching every word.
"But not because you're so principled and righteous yourself," Simon smirked. "You'll refuse because appearing righteous in the eyes of others is more important to you than being righteous in your own. And I assure you, after a while, you'll regret your choice..."
"Enough!" the man interrupted, swallowing hard. "Look, kid, I don't know what you're hoping for, but I'm not sixty years old to believe the words of the first person I meet," the man reached for his wallet with jerky movements and started calculating how much he needed to pay just to get this little rascal to leave him alone. "Let me give you..."
"OH MY GOD!" a primal terror filled the boy's eyes. "Behind you! IT'S KARMA!"
The boy's earlier speech had significantly rattled the man's composure, so he turned around purely by instinct. Seeing no anomalies, he turned back in confusion, only to notice...
...the boy making a run for it as fast as his legs could carry him.
And the wallet he had just pulled out was gone. Along with his phone.
The man had been right from the very beginning. He really had met a blatant con artist.
"THIEF! STOP HIM!"
---
A few blocks later, nothing suggested that the boy strolling along casually had just committed a daring robbery.
There was no hint of guilt or doubt in his eyes—just a typical Tuesday.
With a slick, practiced motion, Simon pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, took one out, and lit it, taking a long drag.
"Hey, kid..." a concerned passerby addressed him, dumbfounded by the sight. "Aren't you a bit young to be smoking?"
The response was a classic English gesture—two middle fingers.
"Here's my ID."
The passerby's expression wasn't even angry; he was just more surprised. The sight of an eleven-year-old smoking and so brazenly flipping him off was beyond his comprehension.
Without waiting for a reaction, Simon continued his stroll through the streets of his native Liverpool.
At one point, his suddenly acting-up intuition warned him of an unwanted "load" from above. With a sudden movement, he stepped aside just as a white "gift" from a pigeon landed exactly where he had been standing.
But at that moment, he was standing near another "trap of fate." A passing car hit a pothole hidden by a puddle. A high plume of dirty rainwater soaked Simon from head to toe and extinguished his freshly lit cigarette.
"Shit happens," he commented with surprising calm on the twists and turns of his own bad luck, and simply lit the next cigarette.
But the calm was merely a facade.
Passing a crowded trash can—the kind you're even afraid to put something on top of—Simon stopped abruptly.
He shook his head and kept moving.
Then he stopped again.
The fingers on his right hand began to twitch violently, as did his eye.
For a second he calmed down, taking a deep breath, but then he suddenly lost control, kicking the trash can with all his might and triggering a fountain of its contents.
Taking another deep breath, Simon quickened his pace so that no one would catch him for petty vandalism. He was very close to his destination.
---
Liverpool is a large English city. Undoubtedly with developed industry, but still, it was a long way from London—one of the largest cities in the world.
And there was one inconspicuous corner in Liverpool, very well known among certain circles, where people came with... technical problems. Yes, that's the best way to put it.
The small electronics shop was tiny; the display case held not only phones of all various models but also the mandatory cases for such places, as well as knock-off cables and adapters which, according to the owner, were of course original and nothing else!
Behind the counter-workshop, cluttered with various electronics, sat an elderly man in glasses with vibrant gray hair. At the moment, he was gutting a phone and, it seemed, changing a battery.
"A-yo, Uncle Misha!" Simon walked in without the slightest hesitation. "I've got a customer for you!"
"I wish my eyes had never seen you," the old man replied imperturbably, not looking up from his work.
Simon chuckled and looked around. Almost nothing had changed since his last visit, except...
"Holy shit..." Simon walked over to a glass frame hanging in the most prominent spot, behind which hung a red jersey with an autograph. "Is that Milner's shirt! How many shekels did you pay for that, old man?"
"He's an old acquaintance of mine," Uncle Misha began, weaving a crafty story out of habit. "One time we were sitting in a pub and..."
"Yeah, right," Simon said, unimpressed. "And I have Jesus on speed dial!"
"Go to hell, you fucking Gypsy!"
"Hey, hey! Watch your language!" Simon feigned an offended face. "I'm a quarter Gypsy—that doesn't count! My father is half Gypsy—now he's a fucking Gypsy! There's a HUGE difference!"
"Don't you try to talk your way out of this!" he finally looked up from the battery replacement. "What did you bring?"
"See, Uncle..." Simon pulled the iPhone X from his pocket. "I forgot the passcode, I need it... wiped, the whole deal, you know, how you do it."
"Yeah, he forgot the passcode," the man said, not believing a word as he took the phone. "I'll take it for four hundred."
"No, no," Simon shook his head. "I need a new phone, the old one doesn't work at all anymore."
"A hundred."
"A hundred? You old Jew!" Simon was taken aback by the price. "Do it for free for old time's sake!"
"Old time's sake? What's that?" Misha made a puzzled face. "Can you eat it? Or at least touch it?"
"I'm practically like a grandson to you!"
"If you were my grandson, I'd strangle you with my own two hands!"
"Now that hurt!" he pouted, then smiled again. "Come on, Uncle Misha! Help a guy out, eh?"
"I don't know anything, they recently updated iOS, everything's gotten harder," Misha replied categorically. "Why don't you wipe it yourself? You're a smart kid!"
"My laptop is totally shot, one foot in the grave," Simon sighed. "I'm literally like that old joke: 'I only need a computer for email'!"
"Anyway," the old man sighed. "Fifty, and not a pound less!"
"Now that's more like it, Uncle! You're not such a Jew after all!"
"Actually, I am a Jew," the old man replied imperturbably.
"Well... not a bad Jew like... like in those jokes about Jews. You know what I mean."
Simon reached into his pocket for the bill, but with a clumsy movement, he accidentally pulled everything out—a crumpled heap of banknotes that amounted to much more than just fifty pounds.
"Maybe you're the Jew from those jokes about Jews?" the old man smiled ironically, but didn't raise the price—they had already agreed, after all.
Simon had the tact to look away sheepishly.
---
Sneaking into his own home was a real challenge for Simon.
First: carefully check the surroundings. No strangers and—what's scarier—no familiar faces in sight.
Climb to the third of four floors and listen at his own door. No sound.
Open the door and freeze on the threshold, waiting for a reaction or any snoring. Clear.
Exhaling carefully, Simon quickly undressed and went into one of the two rooms to quickly hide the "haul" under an inconspicuous flower pot.
He flopped onto the sofa and turned on the laptop sitting on a low table. The laptop seemed to come to life, beginning to rattle, clatter, and moan as if it were on its deathbed.
It took the computer a full five minutes to come to its senses.
And yes, the only task it was capable of was picking up the Wi-Fi from an old phone and opening his email.
Simon... Simon already knew what would be there. But even a blatant pessimistic realist like him wants to see a miracle just once.
The first email:
Dear Mr. Laplace,
We regret to inform you that our school has reached its capacity...
Rejection.
The second email.
The third.
The fourth.
The names succeeded one another:
Boarding schools, private colleges, gated schools with centuries of history—at least one of the names every Englishman had heard. The very places created for nurturing the British elite. Places where not only education but connections were forged. Places where the future is handed out according to lists.
Places that could pull him out of the shit.
...Your academic performance is impressive.
Unfortunately, after a comprehensive review of your candidacy...
...behavioral aspects...
...do not align with the values of our educational institution.
Simon smirked.
"Behavioral aspects," he repeated quietly, savoring the bitterness. "How beautifully one can be told to fuck off, it turns out."
He leaned back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling was cracked—one of the cracks resembled a map of Great Britain if you tried hard enough. More precisely, if you had nothing better to do than stare at the ceiling.
"Of course," he muttered. "As if I had a chance."
He understood that elite places were made for the elite. Sometimes you might stumble upon an inspiring story about a poor boy who was accepted and then made it. But those boys aren't supposed to have police records, numerous disciplinary actions, and a terrible character reference. Simon had all of those in abundance.
In fact, he had no one to blame but himself, but...
He had still hoped. He had probably hoped for something.
But as always, he steadfastly accepted and acknowledged the failure. Completely calmly. At least, that's how it seemed.
However, there was one difference that helped him endure this failure even more calmly.
Intuition persistently whispered that... something was brewing.
Something very important.
And Simon would accept it, whether this "brewing" was good or bad.
Failures wouldn't break him.
They wouldn't.