"Thy will be done!"

So prayed Gromov who had never inclined to religion, but now, he could only let the Vis Major have its will. With butterflies in his stomach, he experienced a sensation of a cumbersome boy attending dancing lessons for the first time.

"When worst came to worst," he kept calming himself, watching nervously how Hawk enter the door, "Simone would make him forget what he saw here."

Creating a bizarre spectacle, there were three people and one android in the dining room.

After having been freed from the Stupifier, Doll, who, usually adhered to the prudish manners of a Victorian lady, switched back to the merry times when she had been a walking advertisement for SexySexyLadies.

Dressed in a half-transparent blouse with black lingerie underneath, a short miniskirt, and gaudy red high-heeled shoes, she evoked a character from a cheap detective movie - a hooker waiting for a tired and lonely chauffeur to let him enjoy five minutes of unhygienic and hasty love.

In this very attire, which had nothing in common with decent robes of merciful nuns, she was nursing weakened Uriah Uriah, feeding him porridge and wiping gently his stained mouth.

Meanwhile, her patient, probably to honor the guest, slipped into Luciano's finest smoking. Malnourished, yet with a dignified, prematurely aged face, the hacker resembled a dying patriarch, leaving the world with clean consciousness and the palm left on Doll's ample buttocks.

To add insult to injury, Professor Zhutra leaned over the heap of paper, focused so intensely on his business that even the opening door could not distract his circles. With disheveled hair and the half-mad expression of a scientist one step closer to the mysteries of the Universe, he would exude an enormous dignity - if not for the sorry fact he had been solving high school equations.

"Welcome to Paradise!"

Entering the room with the God-like line, Hawk stopped midway, shocked by the picturesque scene. Offering him the round shapes of her back faces, Doll was bending over Uriah, revealing an insufficient silk string in the middle of the voluptuous valley with garter belts suspending exclusive fishnet stockings.

"I reckon you already know Luciano's android," chimed in Gromov, giving up all hope.

"Of course," Hawk replied and managed to look elsewhere. "By the way," he added silently and pointed a finger at Uriah, "Who is that old man? I don't recall you mentioning any elder aboard."

"Uriah Uriah. My black passenger. Rest assured he looked starved from the start."

Uriah heaved a sigh. "Please, don't blame my captain. He did the little that he could."

"Yes, the little," Gromov suppressed a sudden desire to strangle Uriah on the spot. No matter what the hacker wanted to express in those words, anyone would leave with the impression Uriah was a saint who had not gotten enough from the world.

An embarrassing silence followed, broken only by the furious scratching of Zhutra's pen. It seemed that constant whisperings had destroyed the professor's attachment to anything insubstantial, so Simone walked over, and with the tone of a kind kindergarten teacher, she announced: "Khamal, we have a visit."

The empty stare of disturbed Zhutra scared even Gromov, not to speak of poor Hawk who had not had the opportunity to observe Zhutra's metamorphosis from the beginning.

"Please, do not mind my professor," Simone spoke up sweetly and reached her slender hand toward astonished Hawk. "Simone Yeuxbleux. And you are, sir?"

The moment the man had made a mistake and gotten caught in her eyes, Gromov wished he had a place to hide away. Simone's eyes were blue like an ocean, similarly deceptive and treacherous, whispering the Siren’s song. But even without whispering, Hawk would lose to the alluring lady.

"Big G," he asked absentmindedly, unaware of how inappropriate he sounded. "Is she the f-lady you told me about?"

"F-lady?"

Being called as such, Simone interrupted the mental pressure and turned her attention to Gromov. "Do you care to explain, Big G? There is only one f-word I know of and I'm pretty sure I don't like it."

"F-word? That's not the word at all," replied Gromov hastily.

"Yes," added Hawk, amending the situation with a nervous laugh. "And it certainly doesn't stand for fat."

"Fat?" Simone frowned. "Why would I think of this particular word?"

Hawk glanced over her sporty figure. "For no good reason, apparently. The f-lady stands for fantastic."

"Friendly," said Gromov at the same time.

"Which is it, then?" asked Simone, becoming more than anything a furious lady. "Am I missing something?"

Since Hawk failed to give a proper explanation, Gromov decided to come to the rescue.

"This is the manner they do speak here," he patted very hard Hawk's back. "Right, Slick H! They are Angels and they have their divine language, shortening whatever they can. Suddenly, I am Big G, the friendly or fantastic lady becomes f-lady, and this very moment they would describe as A.S."

"Yes, A.S.," nodded Hawk eagerly.

"What does it mean?" inquired Simone. But Hawk had no clue and begged Gromov to save him again.

"Awkward Situation," replied Gromov. "Right, Slick H?"

"Right, Big G."

And with growing confidence, Hawk continued: "We all have our peculiar customs, don't we? We should resolve our differences. For instance, Big G was surprised when I called our boss Our Lord which, as I reckon, may feel pretty offensive to religious folks. But we are all Angels from Paradise."

"Our Lord? Paradise? Angels?" Simone giggled like a well-behaved, yet silly mademoiselle. "So funny!"

"Exactly!" Hawk, infatuated with the beauty in front of him, added. "There's nothing wrong with behaving a tad eccentric. It's so much fun. You can't imagine what was my reaction to when Big G told me he'd married a ghost woman."

"A ghost woman? How dare you know of my mother?"

Before Gromov could have acted, Simone's irises widened to the maximal length, becoming black pools of pure malice. Targeted Hawk cried out loudly and collapsed on the ground in agony.

"You crazy bitch! Stop it!"

Infuriated Gromov slapped Simone and she flew towards the wall. All of this happened in a second. Still, Doll reacted fast enough to catch her human sister before she could crash into the coffee machine.

"My dearest father!"

"Did I hurt her, Doll?"

"No, I'm fine," Simone managed to speak up despite blood all over her face. "I'm sorry. But how could he...?"

"I told him," Gromov kneeled down to examine Hawk's condition. "In hindsight, I should not have mentioned Samara to him. In my defense, I thought these Angels would take it as a joke if one of us misspoke and mentioned my ethereal wife by accident. A man of flesh with a ghost woman. So funny, right!"

But no one laughed. To Gromov's horror, Khamal and Uriah had no reactions; they watched the drama with the apathy of cows munching hay.

Finally, Uriah recognized the problem.

"He fell," he said with the slow surprise of the mentally deranged child. "How so?"

"Don't worry, Uriah. Our guest will get up soon."

Fortunately, Simone's powers were really on the weak side, so she could not fry a human brain in such a short impulse. Hawk was lucky to lose consciousness the moment she had attacked, so he suffered from an impact that resembled a light concussion.

After a few minutes of resuscitation, Hawk stoop up dazedly: "What happened to me?"

Gromov shrugged. "No idea, my friend. You scared as to death. How do you feel?"

"My head's spinning. Oh my! Miss Simone, are you injured?"

"No, she isn't," Gromov pointed out accusingly, turning a victim into an abuser. "As you were falling down, you headbutted her nose."

"What?

Confused Hawk burst out in hasty apologies, which Simone accepted gracefully, holding a bloody paper tissue

under her upper lip.

"What a peculiar encounter," she added with no shame. "An angel has just rammed into me. Briefly, I've heard celestial choirs."

"There is only one plausible explanation," proclaimed Hawk. Hearing that, Gromov experienced goosebumps once again. Silently, he begged the young pilot to be careful in whatever he had to say.

Even Simone became cautious. "What is it?"

"Lightning out of blue," Hawk stated. "Can you guess? That thing! What else it could be?"

"Just out of it, dammit," cursed Gromov under his breath. "Don't let us wait. If you have any suspicion, we are eager to know."

"No suspicion, Big G," Hawk shook his head. "I'm certain of it."

"Oh?"

Simone's irises grew larger once again.

"Spit it out!" Gromov growled impatiently.

With no regard for the tension he caused, Hawk smiled innocently: "Miss Simone, forgive me for being so blunt, but it has to be the rumored love at first sight. I've never met someone as beautiful as you. Will you give me a chance?"

After the statement, he turned towards Gromov and asked curiously: "I hope you don't mind, Big G?"

"Love at first sight?"

Gromov watched the man with pity: "I think you better follow me to the medical center. You're spouting nonsense. Don't underestimate the warning sign. There might be a tumor on your brain."