Old acquaintances

Zemin's package had a packet of pills, two low-grade entertainment coupons, and an envelope. There was no return address on it, and no sender's name, but the paper was sealed with a sign of wings and a sword.

A symbol only angels had the right to wield—it meant that the envelope was from an angel. Zemin's heart beat faster.

He hurriedly broke the seal and carefully put the envelope's contents on his table: a memory card and a paper letter, which he immediately read.

[To Zemin Gatti, whom I'm proud to call my protégé.

I wish I could witness your graduation ceremony in person, but my time belongs to the entire Holy Dominion, and my presence was vital elsewhere. Still, I got a report about your grades. I had very little time to tutor you personally in the past, and yet, you still showed the most impressive results.

I hope you will make me even more pleased when I see the zeal with which you destroy the enemies of the Holy Dominion. The day when all your hard work pays off and you rise in rankings and take what you deserve can't come too soon.

In the meantime, keep training and studying. The memory card in the letter has some advanced meditation techniques for developing your Psi-potential. Not everybody can use them well, but I believe in your abilities.

You are free to share them, if you want to.

May the Lord watch over you.

—Makhos, Inquisitor of 2nd rank.]

Zemin read the letter again, then carefully folded it and put it back in the envelope. It's been half a year since he last heard from the angel who became his unofficial mentor and helper all these years ago.

Zemin sighed wistfully, but his lips stretched into a smile. He wanted so much to just call Makhos and tell him all about his life in the Exemplar base—but the angel was too busy to bother with unimportant things like these.

He spent days and nights searching the Holy Dominion for spies and dissidents. Helping Zemin distracted Makhos from it—it actually went against his duty!

After calming down a bit, Zemin took the memory card, then hid the envelope and the letter on the very bottom of his underwear drawer—just in case.

Zemin didn't have a personal smartphone or computer to use the memory card—only a simple phone that was actually a part of his Esquire equipment. Personal computers were too expensive to produce to give them out to everyone. They were given to those who really needed them for work: scientists, accountants, engineers…

But there were public-use computers in the base's small library.

This was where Zemin went. Besides reading and memorizing the memory card's contents, he wanted to look up items he could ask from Danis.

The library was a small place with only a dozen bookshelves. Half of them had torn and dog-eared fiction books, while the other contained newer and more well-kept textbooks about Psionics and combat tactics.

It was an unpopular place—there was a much larger library in the nearby city. But there were two computers standing at the far end of this library, and they were the main attraction.

Both were empty at the moment.

Zemin sat at the right one and opened the contents of the memory card. There were several text files, the reading of which would definitely take Zemin at least a dozen hours.

After reading for half an hour, Zemin stretched and rubbed the small of his back. The chairs here were as if intentionally designed to shoo visitors away…

Of all the places in the base, the library was the most inhospitable so far. Zemin needed to bring the files out of the library, and there were no printers here.

Thankfully…

'Void System,' Zemin thought. 'Scan these books for me.'

<Understood, Master. Scanning is in progress. Bring the text into your field of vision so this Void System could memorize it.>

Zemin opened the first page and scrolled down rapidly. In just a few minutes, he reached the end of the file.

<Scanning complete.>

Zemin smiled. 'This trick is just as useful as it was in the academy.'

He never had to worry about not having the time to write down the lecture, thanks to the Void System. It could memorize any amount of information as long as Zemin saw or heard it.

It was temptingly useful for cheating on exams, but Zemin only used it to study.

Then Zemin opened the Internet browser and typed in the address for a weapon and equipment database, which he got way back in the academy together with his password.

The passwords got changed every half a year, but Zemin's still had a couple weeks in it.

There was so much to look at. Standard Esquire equipment was simple: a protective vest and helmet, a couple of grenades, pistol, assault gun, a sword and utility items like walkie-talkies, medkits and others.

But what about exo-suits that negated G-force and allowed you to move with telekinesis at almost supersonic speeds? Or a Psi-conductive sword to channel Psi-energy during attacks? Or bullets that can be charged with Psi-energy?..

The more Zemin scrolled through items, the harder it was for him to stop on one thing. Especially one thing that he could realistically afford.

His eyes finally fell onto a row of stimulants. "Stone Heart" numbed all feelings of pain and emotion in the user—it would render a normal Psionic useless, but it had only upsides for Zemin.

'Now I just got to ask whether Danis can actually get me any of them—'

"Oh, Zemin! Is that really you? What a coincidence! It was God himself who must've brought us together again!" a cheerful voice interrupted Zemin's thoughts.

He spun in his chair and saw a tall chestnut-haired girl sitting at the computer next to him. Zemin's eyes widened.

"Adia? You are an Esquire, too?!"