Slick & Hustle: The Prague Story — Book V
The first thing Max Slick noticed was the sound.
Read Chapter One — Silence.
Chapter 1 — Silence
The first thing Max Slick noticed was the sound.
Not voices.
Not pain.
Not memory.
A sound.
Low. Distant. Familiar.
For several long seconds he could not place it.
Then it came again.
A jet engine.
Far away.
Somewhere beyond the walls.
Somewhere beyond the rain.
The sound faded slowly into the distance.
Slick stared at the ceiling.
White.
Not perfectly white.
Tiny cracks. Uneven paint. A faint stain near one corner.
He watched it for a while.
Minutes perhaps.
Or hours.
Time had become difficult.
The ceiling remained.
Everything else felt uncertain.
He closed his eyes.
Opened them again.
The room was still there.
That seemed important.
Voices drifted through the corridor outside.
Not English.
Not Czech.
Something else.
Soft. Fast. Efficient.
The words meant nothing.
He listened anyway.
A nurse said something.
Another answered.
Both disappeared down the corridor.
Silence returned.
Then another voice.
Another conversation.
The same language.
German.
The thought arrived slowly.
Germany?
The idea felt absurd.
He could not remember crossing a street.
Let alone a border.
Rain tapped quietly against the window.
The sound reminded him of Prague.
For a moment he thought he was still there.
Then memory returned.
Not as a story.
Not as a sequence.
As fragments.
Dust.
Darkness.
Concrete.
Someone shouting.
A flashlight.
A falling beam.
Then nothing.
The memory vanished as quickly as it appeared.
Slick let it go.
The effort required to hold onto it felt impossible.
Another aircraft passed overhead.
Closer this time.
The sound vibrated faintly through the glass.
Airport?
No.
The intervals were wrong.
The aircraft sounded heavier.
Military?
Maybe.
He wasn’t sure.
He wasn’t sure about much.
Pain arrived eventually.
Not suddenly.
Not dramatically.
Just a steady presence.
A reminder.
A quiet companion sitting somewhere nearby.
Waiting.
Watching.
Patient.
Slick shifted slightly beneath the blanket.
The movement felt strange.
Unfamiliar.
Wrong.
His eyes moved downward.
The blanket covered most of him.
The rest was hidden beneath white sheets and hospital equipment.
For several seconds he did not move.
Some part of him already knew.
Don’t.
The thought appeared immediately.
Another part of him ignored it.
Slowly.
Carefully.
He looked.
The room became very quiet.
Not because anything had changed.
The machines still worked.
Rain still touched the glass.
Voices still moved somewhere beyond the door.
Another aircraft crossed the sky.
But the world had changed.
The bandages were impossible to misunderstand.
Slick stared.
Not shocked.
Not yet.
Shock required energy.
This felt different.
Colder.
Heavier.
More permanent.
His gaze drifted toward the second bed.
Keizer Hustle sat upright against the pillows.
Awake.
Watching the window.
For a moment neither acknowledged the other.
Neither seemed surprised.
As though both had already reached the same conclusion separately.
Eventually Hustle glanced across the room.
Their eyes met.
No words followed.
None were necessary.
The silence lasted almost a minute.
Perhaps longer.
Then Hustle looked away again.
Back toward the rain.
Back toward the grey German sky beyond the glass.
The gesture told Slick everything.
Yes.
It happened.
Yes.
I’m still here.
No.
I don’t know what comes next.
Slick closed his eyes.
The aircraft returned again sometime later.
Or perhaps it was a different one.
He could no longer tell.
Day became evening.
Evening became night.
Hospital lights replaced daylight.
The rain continued.
Relentless.
Patient.
Sleep came and went.
Memories appeared and vanished.
The collapse remained hidden behind a wall his mind refused to cross.
Every time he approached it, darkness waited on the other side.
At some point during the night he woke again.
The room was almost dark.
Only a small lamp near the door remained.
Hustle was awake.
Still.
Looking toward the ceiling.
Neither spoke.
Outside, another aircraft crossed the sky.
The distant roar echoed through the darkness.
Germany.
That much seemed certain now.
Everything else remained a mystery.
Including Prague.
Including Harlow.
Including whatever waited beyond the hospital walls.
For the first time in his life, Max Slick had no plan.
No destination.
No idea what tomorrow would look like.
Only questions.
And silence.
A great deal of silence.
Outside, the rain continued to fall.
As if nothing had happened.
As if entire lives had not changed beneath a collapsed building.
As if the world had not noticed at all.
Perhaps it hadn’t.
Slick listened to the rain.
Listened to the distant aircraft.
Listened to the unfamiliar language beyond the corridor.
And somewhere between waking and sleep, one thought returned again and again.
Not about Prague.
Not about the project.
Not even about his hands.
Where is Harlow?
No answer came. Only silence.
The story continues in Chapter 2 — The Distance.