Exhaled. He pulled the handcuffs, and waited for that 
high-pitched clink to hit his ossicles. 


The glass around him cracked and he managed to 
capture that as low and deep and possible. The water 
started to flow out of his trap and he tried to catch that 
too. As parts of glass fell, slowly enough to look as if they 
were suspended in the air, he managed to break the 
chain neatly into two. Inhale. 


The sound was enough for the rope holding the blade to 
cut on the metal and he exhaled and swung himself to 
the side, colliding with glass. He inhaled and tried to slow 
his fall with his hands but they slipped on the wet floor 
and his skin was cut with shards of glass. 


A pained exhale when he finally landed. Next to him the 
blade almost cut him neatly in two. The world finally sped 
up to his normal speed and the glass clinked under his 
limbs as he tried to get up from the floor. Broken chain of 
his handcuffs collided with the shards and the resulting 
sound made him wince. 


But it was okay. He managed to get on all fours and got 
the gag out of his mouth. He was alive, somehow, again. 
He was grinning, a smile fueled by adrenaline that only 
now got released into his bloodstream. A little bit too late, 
maybe, but that bought him enough time to finally get up, 
more or less manage his cuts and wonder for few 
minutes who the hell got him into this mess before 


vomiting all over the destroyed trap. 


A masterpiece 
They stared blankly at their empty fingers. 
Nothing would come. 


They closed their eyes and tried again. And again. And 
again. And they knew they were forcing themself, mind 
straining, fingers twitching and yet nothing came. 


White paper still was the perfect mindscape that they 
couldn't budge. 


The king 


Sam and Gabe did a hell of a job with costumes, given 
time they'd had, maybe two weeks or so. Admittedly, 
they did work on whatever Jula left before she broke up 
with Oscar but she was also the reason why they didn't 
have much time. Still, Hugo couldn't help but awe at the 
quality of costumes. He could ignore the needles sticking 
in inconvenient places when his eyes were too focused 
on the patterns. 


He saw all of them during rehearsals but now, as they 
prepared for the actual show, the marvel bloomed anew. 
He had to admit he couldn't keep his eyes out off the 
mirror in their improvised backstage. At this point he no 
longer felt upset about Jula leaving. She threw the script 
into his face, screaming, accusing him of fooling her. 
Hugo did indeed keep her in the dark about exactly what 
play he wanted to do, but well, what a shame. 


The play was particularly infamous in his circles and Jula 
was the only one that knew why. The rest of the actors 
and staff? Blind and deaf, just excited about new script, 
no longer constantly resorting to old plays. A breath of 


freshness from between half-rotten teeth. There was 
something amusing about this image. He glanced at a 
cup in the corner, a prop representing the poison for the 
fourth act. It was a simple paper cup, with a splash of 
clay and violet paint. It hurt his eyes if he stared too long. 


Hugo wondered if what flowed through his mind would 
drip from his mouth and turn into a tasteless and 
scentless liquid. 


That was the main deal here. Hugo heard about what 
could happen to those playing this particular play, all 
anartists did. But the question was: if you dwell in the 
territory of pushing reality with anart, how does that 
affect the play? Of course, anomalous actors exist, like 
Hugo, but they were so rare Hugo could bet he was the 
first one to dive into those dangerous waters. 


At least he liked to believe he did. He felt like setting a 
new path and testing out how that would work. He was in 
a mood to play with forces he barely knew but he 
considered himself to be a skilled anartist. Even if things 
went awry, he will survive. 


Eszter appeared in his line of sight, grinning at him while 
twirling in the outfit of a whore. She was still smiling and 
Hugo nodded at her in acknowledgement. Worst case, 
she'll die, like the rest. 


Hugo was very sure of his little morbid project, always 
calming himself that no matter where he will swim or 
where the torrent will take him, he will be able to 
resurface. Creativity always pushed him on, every step 
dedicated to that fickle and unreliable force that 
managed to direct his every step. Now he realized he 
wasn't sure. He wasn't exactly amoral, like the common 
stereotype of anartists, but he did like to experiment. 


Out of nowhere Oscar appeared behind him. "Jula is 
here," they whispered. 


And here she was, standing in the entrance to the 
backstage. Hugo would normally get up now and walk to 
her, but she was staring at something behind him, eyes 
wide and face carefully blank. He didn't dare to turn 
around, but he also didn't have to guess what she saw. 
He looked away and glanced at a violet cup. 


Hugo disregarded the clicking of high heels behind his 
back as he again wondered about the poison. Oscar 
seemed to not notice how easy it is to poison a well. 


At first the play went just right. As he played, he forgot 
about Jula's carefully blank stare. He was now Gonzalo, 
for all intents and purposes. Some maybe had a bit more 
of a distance between the self and the characters but 
Hugo liked to take the character as a second skin. It 
helped to tap into things that drove him forward, 
internalizing to the point of hitting the surface of his mind. 
And so he tuned in with the to-be-king and walked out of 
backstage and waited for the curtain to rise. 


When the crown touched his head, he felt relief. He 
allowed himself to dive and let the show slowly waltz 
around him. He was at the center of it, even when Oscar- 
Isabella replaced him on the stage. He listened to them- 
her speak as if through the fog - he knew what she was 
saying to the audience, he knew the text by heart and 
they repeated it enough times - but each word was like a 
punch to a stomach. As it should be. 


It went on and Hugo swam deeper and deeper, into 
darker waters. Gonzalo was him all along, but Hugo was 
diving alone. It was calm and peaceful. Things went on - 
or not - as they should. The play was deviating from the 
script but it was okay, such was the nature of the flow 
and he accepted that a long time ago. When play wasn't 
fully done by a troupe, there was little leeway for 
interpretation. 


Not this time. 


He was halfway through the second act when he again 
heard those high heels hit the floor behind him. The 
sound was distinct enough and sufficed for him to choke 
on air. Gonzalo turned towards the source of it and 
allowed himself to bow deeply to the creature in front of 
him. He didn't want to stare and it felt natural. When he 
straightened his back, it was staring at him, even though 
it had no eyes. 


He inhaled and the air hit blood on his tongue and ina 
blind moment of panic he tried to dive deeper, only to 
find he had no water to dive in. 


Hugo found out he was suffocating. He tried again and 
again to reach into this flow, this torrent that kept him 
alive and moving for such a long time but he found 
nothing. The river was dry, empty, as if it never was here 
in the first place and he felt like a shriveled husk. Maybe 
he was, at this point. He stared at the creature in front of 
him, this Ambassador, this- this- 


It motioned to him to go backstage and Gonzalo nodded 
and followed it. He wasn't sure if he did it willingly. 


Hugo understood. The moment of clarity was brief, a 
shining lighthouse in the middle of sea of fear. He knew 
he would die. He knew he knew he knew but that little 
light, that knowledge that he understood how that damn 
play worked and why it worked only sometimes- it was 
dazzling. It was more than he bargained for. The only 
regret was that he couldn't share that with anyone. 


Gonzalo wondered if his price was high enough for the 
cup full of poison and Hugo could already imagine a cut 
body of Eszter divided into neat parts on a dining table 
as he hung above it, noose cutting out his airflow. He 
threw one last look at the audience and even through the 
blinding lights he could see Jula. She shook her head 
and left and Hugo knew this was it. 


He could run from the scene, but his skin was parched, 


aching. Out of the depths straight into a blinding heat. 


Show must go on. 


IV 


Agent Gofr winced at the smell coming from the room 
before he even crossed the entrance to the apartment. 
Feuerstein smiled politely at his expression, nodding. 
With each step he resisted covering his mouth with his 
tie. Gofr had no idea how she could stand there so 
calmly. 


Feuerstein opened the door for him and Gofr winced 
again, feeling his lunch rise to his throat. 


The man was sitting in the chair in the middle of the 
living room, his arms and torso unnaturally suspended in 
the air. The entire body was covered in long slashes, 
dried blood covered him, the chair and most of the floor. 
His arms were gangly, thin. Apparently the man had 
soiled himself at least once, one of sources of the 
stench. In front of him lay an open laptop. Gofr didn't 
dare to look at it, just in case. 


Gofr waited in the doorway and behind him Sabre 
whipped out a camera and started to take photos, flash 
catching everything anew every few moments. They 
already had photos from the police that called them in 
here but Sabre knew what to look for, plus and that gave 
Gofr some time to look around. 


The sight of the body made him shiver. It was like 
watching a live statue, except the guy was a corpse, 
pale, unmoving. Blood already dried on his clothes. Gofr 
felt the urge to touch the guy, see if anything did 
suspend him at all - he looked as if invisible strings held 
him up, as if they cut into his body and caused the 
wounds, but Sabre moved around him with a camera 
freely. Maybe the man was thrashing around, maybe it 


was some sort of can, who knew. Gofr knew one thing: it 
already was a bit too much for him. 


The room was covered in thick layer of dust. Upstairs, he 
knew there was a body of a little girl, a daughter. All that 
happened days, if not weeks ago. Maybe an autopsy 
could help, or maybe Feuerstein noticed something he 
didn't. But it didn't matter anymore, did it? 


He noticed a book in the corner of the room, the only 
object not covered by dust. He motioned Sabre to come 
to him and take a photo of it, but he knew now it was 
useless. He fished out for the phone from the backpocket 
of his pants and called his boss. This was a bit too much 
for them, but Gofr was fairly sure the Foundation would 
do more here than them. 


He sighed and braced himself for insults. 


« Flow | HUB | Professors of Anart » 


Professors of Anart 


"This is a terrible idea," Yang said as she looked around the room. 


The room seemed perfectly normal for an art studio. Large, white, 
with drawing boards, stools, still life objects, and an abundance of 
art supplies. Except for maybe that there was no actual entrance or 
exit, and doors and windows were mere paintings on the walls. 


"Why?" Legler countered. "You're the one complaining that the lack 
of proper knowledge and basic guidelines has led anartists to act 
irresponsibly, mistaking things harmful to others as creative 
expressions." 


"And obsessing with magic tricks instead of proper art endeavor, 
yeah," Yang said. "But anart teaching studios don't really happen. 
And there is a good reason to that." 


"This is a much safer environment, if we want to introduce people to 
the Flow." Legler argued. "I know you're still beating yourself up over 
what happened to Martha, but this can prevent precisely that. We 
can't exactly control what is to happen if we just show people to the 
Flow, but with this, we can guide their journey and prevent anything 
regrettable." 


Yang stared at the art professor. "Do you know that the Suits 
sometimes call us ‘art terrorists’? In reality, it's just that few small 
groups that got themselves really famous, and think that they can 
step over other people's lives because of anomalous bullshit." 


"Most of us aren't like that." 


"No, but the Suits won't care. | won't care either if I'm someone from 
outside this circle and only heard about the terrible things committed 
by famous 'anartists'," Yang said, eyeing one of the painted 

windows. "You put a lot of effort into this piece, professor, but for the 


Suits and everyone else, this is just going to be a breeding ground 


for more ‘art terrorists’, and they're going to snuff it out for good." 


"We'll keep it small," Legler gestured to the few stools present. "I've 
seen some really talented young people, and | hate to see them go 
down the wrong way, get grabbed by the Suits, or never even get to 
know this side of the world." 


"Maybe it would be better that way." 
"No, Yang. You don't mean that." 


"No Legler." Yang snapped. "I'm not doing this. I'm retired from this 
shit for good." 


"Oh really?" Legler said, raising an eyebrow. "Then what were you 
doing with the gang that other day, brought a friend even." 


Yang was silent, and Legler took the chance to push further. "You 
haven't been to any exhibitions, but how many animated art pieces 
are hanging in your apartment walls right now? Already filled up the 
living room, for sure. I've seen one on the back of your front door." 


Yang rubbed her temple. "| should really just sell them to someone 
in bulk." 


"That's not the problem, Yang," Legler stared at her. "You just can't 
stop creating them, right?" 


A few seconds of silent, before Yang answered. "Yes." 


"| Know this is hard for you. But do consider this, okay?" Leagler 
said. "We can make this work." 


Yang nodded, before heading for one of the painted doors. She 
reached into it, and the paints splattered like water. The door now 
swirled and twisted, and Yang was immersed within. Before long, 
she disappeared into the spiral of colors. 


Legler watched the door returning to its still state, and sat down at 
one of the stools. He was not sure if Yang would really agree to 
help, but she was the best shot he had. Most of his past students, 
unlike Yang, had either joined various anart cells and moved on, or 


had developed ideologies that didn't agree with his. And most of the 
people he would call friends were either retired for good, or caught 
up in stagnation. 


In fact, he too, was caught up in stagnation. As he looked through 
the painted windows and observed the view behind, real scenery 
mingling with patches of colors, he realized this piece was the 
closest he had been to the Flow of art creation in months, or even 
for a whole year. Of course, he had produced pieces here and there, 
but they were all somewhat lacking. 


But as he constructed the studio, he had felt the urge to create 
stronger than ever. That everything had lined up perfectly and he 
just had to move forward and link them together with his bare hands. 
As he poured paints and clay and concrete into this, he forgot the 
passage of time. His mind barely attached to reality as it floated 
inside his work. And before he even fully registered, a studio 
suspended between spaces was completed. At one end it latched 
onto his favorite tree by the river, where he would go and enjoy the 
falling of leaves in autumn; on the other end it linked to that one 
bench in the campus where he taught, once sat on, now long 
discarded.