"Why?"

Javert didn't answer. He was staring with a perplexed expression at the paddles of the fan going round and round underneath the high beige ceiling.

"Why are we… fucked?" repeated Valjean with some effort.

"Because, hotshot, if the kid didn't hack into your computer and didn't install any tracing programs to it, then there are only two distinct possibilities for how he managed this feat, both of which make me more than a bit uneasy. Either there is a team out looking for you, with sufficient resources to trace you across the main railroad nerve centers of France, Switzerland and Germany, which is a pretty weird and scary idea. Or someone must've told him where we ended up." Javert paused briefly. "Or it could even be both. A team who knew where you were going. Somehow. How?"

"Perhaps from our communications? Something I said over the phone could've been overheard?"

"But you said nothing of importance over the phone. You told me, and I'm quoting you exactly, 'We have to talk urgently, please meet me on Maximus at nine-thirty pm CEST.' That was it."

"Then from the chat itself?"

"Was anyone seated close to you when it took place?"

"No, I made sure of that."

"Was your back to a wall?"

"Yes. Wait… no, it wasn't. It was to the outer wall of the station. A glass wall. A huge tinted window. Someone must've looked in on me. But I haven't felt anyone nearby…"

"Then either a mortal or someone with very excellent binoculars. So what follows from that? What follows?.."

The question trailed off into a mumble. Javert's eye wandered restlessly about the room, as though he were seeing it for the second time in his life after having been left in it once for a long, scary night as a small child. Finally, his gaze fell upon a dish of thick crystal standing on the upper shelf of the bookcase and propping up several small, fat yellow Reclam volumes, the outermost of which was Brant's Das Narrenschiff.

Javert rolled off the bed, walked up to the bookcase and picked up from the dish a string of large, uneven, translucent green beads. Valjean recognized the jade rosary he bought for his friend many years ago and couldn't keep himself from smiling.

"You kept them!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know if you would. So you did like them after all?"

In lieu of an answer, Javert lifted his arm to his chest and began clacking the beads against one another in a languid rhythm.

"If you think about it, the idea is kind of silly," he went on as if Valjean hadn't spoken. "If there's a team out there, why did they send this particular guy to be their avatar? He is useless as a tracker. You sensed him several times, spotted him several more times. So it could be that this group in fact wanted you to know you were being followed and work yourself up into a proper panic. But you also matched his Presence to his face and figure at least twice. I.e., you have his positive ID in your pocket. You could potentially make his life hell with that kind of information. And yet he didn't seem worried."

Another bead clacked under Javert's long thumb.

"Also, it is apparent that he is a brand new immie without a single head to his name – he doesn't start feeling you until you're within the thirty-one meter range, which is the standard initial radius. Not much to panic about, unless you are also completely useless with a sword. Which you are, no offence. And it seems that they knew that."

Another energetic clack.

"But why would they need you to panic? This makes no sense. Even if they have only have a perfunctory acquaintance with your personal history, they will know that you are emphatically not making yourself a part of the Game. It's not like you're some ace of sword-fighting whom they could be hoping to bring off balance."

Clack.

"Unless, of course, they knew that as well. In which case…"

Clack.

"In which case, they were probably not after you at all."

Clack.

"They knew exactly what you were going to do once you'd been cornered."

Clack. Javert lowered his arm.

"It was me they wanted to find."