That is when Evil Hansel falls from the fake A-frame rafters like a giant bat and slams a plastic refuse sack over my head.

I fucking hate Switzerland.

It is a Swiss refuse sack and so it is paid for by taxation at point of sale and you have to use these sacks to get your refuse taken away although recycling is free but that is not the point the point is that it is tough and thick and industrial and Evil Hansel gets it tight over my face so that the lip of the sack is pulling up under my chin like the strap on a helmet. He is actually standing on my shoulders and lifting with his legs strongman-style. I struggle of course but he’s a limber little shit heel and I cannot get rid of him. I smash myself against a wall but he shifts grip around to—I’m not sure. It’s hard to say. It’s hard to say anything.

Hypoxia is amazingly quick and faster when you’re working hard. You have breathed every second every day of your life. Try not breathing and running at the same time and get back to me.

I try to breathe and the air in the sack tastes of solvent and hydrocarbons and a hint of antibacterial cleaner. At least the floor polish smell is gone now all I can smell is my own dying. I guess that is Swiss. Evil Hansel is killing me with a sterile murder weapon.

Sterile and gray. Battleship gray like the doors of the Festung which if I die here I will not rob. Gray plastic and gray steel. I cannot see the gray plastic because it is opaque and over my eyes. My face feels as if it will explode off the front of my skull.

Well I guess this is going to suck but at least Doc will have to shut up about it.

Doc would not give me a tracheal stent but she gave me a modified tactical pen. This is an ordinary pen but made of titanium dragon penis or something and it does not break and the edges, if you remove the rollerball cartridge, are really sharp. The front inch or so is detachable to make an emergency stent and Doc and Charlie gave it little tick arms so that once it’s in it’s in.

I flick the lid off and punch myself in the throat with it.

The sharp end of the pen cuts right through my skin like almost too far. It hurts like fucking hell and then I heave my chest and something goes SPLURT and that is the little plug of me flying out of the tube and then I am breathing through a surgical hole in my neck.

I am a fucking genius. I totally saw this coming and I planned for it and I am a fucking genius bleeding all over the sheets.