:55 AM

His company jet already has the engines running. Igor sits in his favor- ite seatsecond row on the leftand waits for takeoff. As soon as the seat-belt sign is turned off, he goes to the bar, serves himself a generous measure of vodka, and drinks it down in one.

For a moment, he wonders if he really had succeeded in sending those messages to Ewa, while he was busy destroying worlds. Should he have been more explicit, adding a further note or a name or some- thing like that? That would have been terribly riskypeople might think he was a serial killer.

And he wasnt: he had an objective, which, fortunately, had changed in time.

The thought of Ewa doesnt weigh on him as much as it used to. He doesnt love her as he once did, and he doesnt hate her as he came to hate her. With time, she will disappear completely from his life, which is a shame because hes unlikely to find another woman like her, for all her defects.

He goes back to the bar, pours himself another vodka, and again drinks it down in one. Will they realize that a single person was re- sponsible for extinguishing those worlds? It doesnt matter. His only regret is the moment he decided to give himself up to the police in the afternoon. Fate, however, was on his side and he managed to complete his mission.

Yes, he had won, but the winner doesnt stand alone. His night- mares are at an end. An angel with dark eyebrows is watching over him and will teach him which path to follow from now on.