22:59

13:05

Roger flew into his office, five minutes late for the start of his shift. He should have run to the checkpoint right away, but he felt that he needed a little respite, and decided to drink a coffee alone.

His plans were thwarted by a call to his cell phone. More precisely, could be thwarted. Seeing the name "Sandra" on the display, Roger imagined her pronouncing one word a minute and winced. By pressing the "hang up" button, he opened the messenger and wrote:

"Something urgent? I can not talk. Busy."

"No".

"Okay. I'll call you back." Roger wrote at the end. His finger hovered in thought over the send button, and then typed "I Love You".

Roger looked at the office phone and saw a missed call from Patrick, the Chief Controller.

"Hell!"

Roger realized that there was no time for coffee, he turned around and ran out of the office.

"Patrick, what happened?" Roger was not at all out of breath, although he had to run first through the entire floor, and then up three flights. Constant training had its effects.

"Oh Mr. Stone! Did you run?"

"Tell me, what's the matter? You called me and I thought..."

"Nothing, you just didn't show up on time, and I decided to clarify whether to wait for you or release people to the front-lines."

"And? Have you released them?"

"I released them sir."

"Well. Next time call me on my cell." Roger caught a whiff of something strange and wanted to clarify. "Why did you want to wait for me? You know the routine, my presence is optional..."

"Yes I know. It just seemed to me that one of the Offenders was behaving strangely."

"Who? And what do you mean, strangely?"

"Like his name..." Patrick entered the individual number which was given to all Offenders in the search bar, "Christian, sir."

"Christian?"

"Yes, Mr. Stone."

"Okay and what's wrong with him?"

"Um... I don't know it's probably just nothing..."

"Talk Patrick!!!"

"He very quickly flew into the garage, immediately went to his car, then pulling the door handle, he remembered that he had not taken the key from the entrance. He returned. It struck me as odd sir, as if he's nervous."

"This morning he was a little on edge, and I advised him to go to the doctor for sedatives."

Patrick looked at his boss in surprise. As far as he knew, in such cases the offender should have been removed from the route. But Mr. Stone, of course, knew better. Patrick said nothing, turned to the monitor and muttered something unintelligible.

"Patrick, do you think that he should not have been released in the morning?"

"Who am I to judge this sir? All of them are checked before the shift. It means that everything was normal."

"Yes, I thought so too, Patrick."

Roger stood looking at the monitors. So long as all went well, traffic jams from cars rushing to take their masters away on business to their lawful lunch grew. There were no accidents.

"What car does Christian have?

Patrick again looked at his computer for the information he needed.

"A red Chevrolet sir."

"Display it on a separate screen and enlarge it. Let's watch him so that nothing happens."

"Of course, Mr. Stone," Patrick ran his fingers over the keyboard, "screen number 19, sir," he pointed to the left side.

"Thank you, Patrick."

In front of Roger's eyes was the ring road linking the main streets of the city and the school, hospital, library, and largest shopping center together. In theory, at least five personnel should be placed there, and not two as is customary now.

Roger decided that he would try to persuade his superiors to give him at least two more staff positions. If he was lucky, he would get one.

Nothing happened on screen 19. Cars were in a traffic jam, barely moving along the ring road and turning onto their desired streets. Roger saw the red Chevrolet, Christian was doing his job well.