CHAPTER 3
As soon as he got out, he was immediately pushed by a pair of passers-by. Nothing unusual in this world, he told himself, smiling as he recalled the images that Martin had showed him. Broad, clean, half-empty streets for ten years. This alone would have been priceless.
He looked up at the dark sky where the clouds, loaded with rain and smog, prevented from seeing the stars and the moon. The stars. He’d seen only a few times. The few times they’d accepted his request to buy a ticket (at an exorbitant price) giving access to the highest skyscraper in town. Only from there could you see them, and only if the sky was clear, of course, which didn’t happen very often, actually hardly ever, to tell the truth.
It started raining. Fred pulled his coat tight, raising the hood. It was al
