Quartet

Act 1. Vienna, 1913

Autumn that year was rainy. A small, smoke-filled bar in the center of Vienna smelled of dampness, expensive tobacco, and anxious anticipation.

Arthur sat at a corner table. He looked about fifty: an impeccable tweed suit, gray at the temples, calm hands resting on the tabletop. He wasn't drinking. He was observing. Arthur knew the old world was living out its final months. Swords had grown dull, cannons obsolete. The coming century required new management.

His gaze slid over the patrons.

At the bar, a heavy, corpulent man resembling a prosperous banker was haggling with a waiter. He was dressed to the nines but was greedily finishing off the free nuts. — You shortchanged me by a crown, — he mumbled, wiping greasy lips with a napkin. — Wastefulness will lead this empire to ruin faster than bullets. Arthur nodded to his own thoughts. This was Marcus. A man capable of creating a deficit with a single stroke of a pen.

A little further away, by the window, sat a painfully thin young man in wire-rimmed glasses. He grimaced fastidiously every time a lady at the next table coughed. The young man constantly wiped his long, musical fingers with a handkerchief soaked in something acrid. — Bacteria in enclosed spaces multiply exponentially, — he muttered into the void. — If people understood the beauty of purity, they would stop breathing on each other. This was Julian. A misanthropic virologist who considered his strains to be underappreciated art.

And there was a fourth. The most inconspicuous one. A man in a gray suit, with a face you forget a second later. He sat quietly, with a polite, slightly sad smile, simply watching people. He judged no one. He knew the finale of everyone in this room. This was Thomas.

Arthur picked up his glass, stood, and approached their tables, gesturing for them to join him. When they, bewildered, sat together, he spoke. His voice was quiet but cut through the street noise.

— Gentlemen, — began Arthur. — I have been watching you. You are talented, but fragmented. You are elements, and the world needs a system. — Who are you? — asked Marcus, covering a handful of nuts with his palm. — I am the one who makes decisions, — answered Arthur. — I am offering you a job. Not serving evil — that is vulgar and old-fashioned. I propose to organize chaos. It is barren. We will give it structure. We will become the Horsemen, so people know whom to fear. Fear breeds order.

They exchanged glances and agreed.

---

Act 2. Present Day. The Same Bar

More than a hundred years had passed. The interior had changed, becoming trendy and faceless, but the table in the corner remained the same.

The four gathered for a briefing. The mood was somber.

Arthur looked tired. The scars beneath his expensive suit ached. — I am losing control, — he admitted, swirling the whiskey in his glass. — War used to be an art, a duel of nations. Now it is a boring dispute between economic entities. Hybrid conflicts, drones, proxy armies... People have learned to kill each other without my direct order. I feel like a figurehead.

Julian nervously adjusted his turtleneck. — I have the same problem, Arthur. I created a masterpiece. An ideal virus. Elegant, with a beautiful distribution curve. I thought it would unite them or force them to repent. But they started gnawing at each other over masks and making money on vaccines. My art has been vulgarized. They turned tragedy into farce.

Marcus sighed heavily. Before him stood a plate of delicacies he hadn't touched. — The world has a crisis of overproduction, — he grumbled. — There is enough food to feed three planets. But people still starve. Do you know why? Because corporate greed is more efficient than me, Famine. My work has become meaningless. A satiated man invents nothing, that is my motto. But now, even the hungry invent nothing except new schemes for taking money.

Thomas remained silent the longest. He twirled a beer coaster in his hands. — You know what I think about? — he said quietly. — We always considered ourselves players. Figures that take pawns. But what if we are just squares on the board? And the players left long ago, leaving us to clean up this game? — What are you getting at? — frowned Arthur. — At the fact that we are tired, — replied Death. — Maybe it’s time to take a vacation? A Great Pause?

---

Act 3. The Great Pause

They quit the game. All at once.

Arthur recalled all armies. Conflicts fell silent. Weapons stopped firing. Marcus crashed food prices to zero. Food became free and ubiquitous. Julian destroyed all viruses and bacteria. Hospitals emptied. Thomas simply stopped showing up. No one died. At all.

For the first week, the world rejoiced. By the second month, Hell arrived.

Without the threat of death and war, the population began to grow at a monstrous rate. The planet was suffocating. Without the fear of the end, people lost their human semblance. Absolute, mindless hedonism began. Cruelty, unpunished by death, became the norm. Old people, begging for rest, could not leave and continued to wither eternally. The youth, deprived of the stimulus to survive, sank into apathy and debauchery.

A world without the Horsemen turned out to be more terrible than one with them. It was a rotting biomass, devoid of purpose, honor, and meaning.

---

Finale. The Return

They sat in the bar again. Outside the window, TV screens broadcast the madness engulfing the planet. Cities were burning, not from war, but from boredom and impunity.

They realized the tragic truth. They were not villains.

Arthur finished his whiskey, straightened his tie, and slowly stood up. The steely glint returned to his eyes. — Remember what Goethe wrote? — he asked. — "Part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good." We were mistaken in thinking we were punishers. No, we are the immune system.

He looked around at his friends. — Time to work, gentlemen. Without us, they are just animals consuming resources. With us, they are heroes of a tragedy, capable of greatness. We give them meaning. We give them a finale that makes life valuable.

Marcus nodded, pulling out his tablet with stock market reports. Julian wiped his glasses, preparing to release a new strain.

They walked out into the night, towards the glow.

Thomas lingered at the exit. He beckoned the young waiter who had served them all evening. 

— Thank you, my boy, — said Thomas with a warm, fatherly smile. He left a generous tip on the table. Very generous. Because he knew: tomorrow this boy would die. And it would be an act of supreme mercy.