"They're leaking braincells, if they had any to begin with . "

"I'll take it from here . An open threat, at least, we're allowed to act on," Amaya said from the other end of the line .

Ulf pulled the cord to his hands free to make sure the mic didn't fall outside his coat . "Yes . Thank you Amaya . " He didn't ask how far she had gone in her own manhunt . That topic was taboo .

'd.a.m.n, had forgotten how early spring comes here . ' This was definitely something that was better in j.a.pan than Sweden .

"Urufu, you stay out of this from now on, hear me?"

"Yes Amaya . I'm not going after armed crazies . " 'Should have thought about that last summer . d.a.m.n, what a moron I was . ' "Don't worry . "

"You always make me worry," Amaya said . At the end of that sentence her voice warmed up somewhat . "I know you're over fifty, but you're still the son I never had . "

He had long since stopped thinking of her as his daughter . His mother? No, but Amaya was still his senior in ways he could never understand . Almost ten years spent watching j.a.pan's underbelly gave her a view of society he just didn't have . With that realisation came a respect he had shamefully enough not given her for over a year .

'I've been so b.l.o.o.d.y full of myself . And look where it brought me . Lost it all in the end . ' He firmly shoved that whiny thought back into a recess of his mind . 'Not all . I still have my friends . '

But he was breaking apart . He knew that . Working just as hard as Christina only gave him so many hours of sanity and no more . 'Spring break . I'll heal during spring break . ' That was less than three weeks away, and exams should occupy his mind before that .

After he finished his call he returned to his books . These days Ulf pushed the speed at which he learned written j.a.panese . A few months more, and the results should be obvious . Or they already were . He read books for middle schoolers without much problems now and had already started on more mainstream fiction .

At the moment he went through English, or rather he went through their j.a.panese translations, most of which Kareyos.h.i.+-sensei had got correct . As far as Ulf was concerned, 'most' wasn't good enough for a teacher, but if he wanted to boost his grades he had to answer in the wrong way that his teacher preferred .

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'f.u.c.k this place!' But with the old goat preparing for his retirement, incompetence was acceptable as long as it went hand in hand with authority .

'Oh well, next princ.i.p.al is bound to rein the moron in, or else it'll show in the central exams . ' At least club hours were enough to rectify the worst of Kareyos.h.i.+'s insanities . Which also was why Ulf prepared a lesson in history making use of all vocabulary and grammar constructions expected to be tested during the upcoming exams .

Yukio and Kyoko should show up any moment, and Ulf needed Kyoko . She already delivered beyond expectations and probably would create professional layouts a few years down the line .

Ulf lined up a few parallels between English and j.a.panese history . Both nations firmly locked onto islands helped; similarities followed along geographical reasons, and there were enough strange contrasts to merit a conversation as well .

Flipping between pages he gave a thankful thought to his sixteen year old eyes surpa.s.sing the fifty year old ones he got used to . Now he could run four minimalistic screens, swapping between them with his finger-tops and with but a flick of thumb and middle finger he zoomed in on a part that needed changing . Amateurs used their index finger for that; it was needed to switch screens .

While bluetooth still sucked, mostly due to Neanderthal interfaces, it still was the preferred way to access secondary speakers .

Some downloads and digital violence a few months earlier allowed Ulf to push data over bluetooth and HDMI simultaneously . Sure, the Seattle produced operating system tried to convince him otherwise, but in the end it was only a matter of the size of the digital sledgehammer applied . Anyone who didn't give up when faced with Slackware Linux the first time learned that the hard way . Ulf's first time had been pre commercial Internet .

The sound of bells chiming trickling through the door had him look up from his laptop, and Ulf grinned when Yukio and Kyoko arrived . He had a little something to tell them before he put them to work .

"Yukio, hand me your phone! And Kyoko's . "

Two frowning faces gave him their phones .

Ulf quickly downloaded his last gift from Amaya .

"OK, this is a piece of new digital candy for the both of you . In fact I've installed it on my unit as well, and I'm having Amaya lean on Christina as well . "

"What does it do?" Kyoko asked and cut to the chase .

"Punch it like this during a phone call and you'll have the Hammer of G.o.d descending on the other side," Ulf said and showed . He didn't say it also immediately tried to crack its way into the offending phone . 'I never knew they had that kind of software installed in the stations . '

Something rather insidious interfaced as the legit phone-operator before handing traffic over to legit channels . A lot easier to do with the phone-company actively a.s.sisting with the installation . That part Amaya knew nothing of . Ulf used her name without asking first .

'b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Kyoko and Yukio are my friends!' He'd screw the suckers over so badly they'd want a new one when he was done . A promise to Amaya to stay out of it all was worth so much and no more .

"Get back to me from time to time to get upgrades," Ulf said . At least partially true . To get updated databases installed was the real reason .

Whenever that phone went online he got more data, and every phone number, Line-address, email-address, well, pretty much everything it contacted on a list he had made . And everything those points contacted, and those contacted in turn . Ulf had a data a.n.a.lysing tool trimmed according to his specifications . Anything even remotely circular contact-wise got snooped permanently . Whatever circles of friends, relatives and contacts that a.r.s.ehole had were subject to brutal and extremely illegal surveillance .

'Don't f.u.c.k with someone who was there from the start!'