Three flatmates in a shabby city-centre apartment decide to sell cheesecakes, and their improvised business attracts a visitor with a briefcase and a very suspicious tie.
Seven floors up, on the eighth, in the most battered tenement in the city centre, lived a trio of overgrown children. Officially they were adults - each of them had, inconveniently, crossed the age of eighteen - but in practice they still behaved like people who considered buying cutlery an ambitious life plan.
Flat 42 on KoĊowa Street belonged to Basia, who could turn any comment into a joke sharper than the comment itself; Artur, who could fall asleep on a chair, a windowsill, or standing up if conditions were right; and Zbyszek, who insisted on being the serious one, despite offering no convincing evidence. Their favourite pastime was launching businesses destined to change the world, or at least embarrass them briefly before they gave up.
There had been the button clipper, which sold exactly once, to Basia's mother. The cloud-analysis app, which failed because the only thing anyone analysed was the weather they were avoiding. The unforgettable Cheesecake T-shirts, whose success remained unclear even to the people who made them.
On one especially grey morning, when the clouds hung so low Artur no longer bothered pretending to study them, Basia stormed into the living room with the expression she usually reserved for either disaster or genius.
Artur opened one eye from the sofa.
Do we have cheesecakes?
We have a kitchen.
Dangerous answer, - Zbyszek muttered.
Basia ignored him. - We have an oven. We have hands. We have determination.
She paused, glanced at the counter, and noticed that they had half a tub of cottage cheese, three eggs, and no sugar.
Fine. Almost everything.
I like our odds less now, - said Zbyszek, but not enough to stop her.
By evening they were haunting the cheapest shops in the district, dragging home sacks of ingredients and enough margarine to alarm a cardiologist. The flat filled with the smell of browning crust and sweet cheese, and the smell, annoyingly, did what their posters and fantasies had failed to do: it attracted actual customers.
First came Mr Marian from the ground floor, who bought two slices, ate one in the hallway, and tipped them as if he had just discovered a hidden talent rather than a dessert.
Then came messages. Then online orders. Then a glowing review that declared their cheesecake "the best thing on this street, possibly in the whole city," which was ridiculous, but not so ridiculous that they removed it.
By midnight an email arrived from a mysterious accountancy firm requesting five whole trays for a meeting the next day.
Basia was pouring another batch into a tin when someone knocked.
Once.
Then again, quieter, as if the visitor had changed their mind halfway through the action.
Zbyszek straightened, suddenly looking like a man whose future was about to begin.
He opened the door.
On the landing stood a man in a dark suit, wearing a chocolate stain where a tie ought to have been, and carrying a briefcase labelled Cheesecake Control S.A.
He stepped inside without waiting to be invited, set the case on the table, and looked at the hot tray with unsettling calm.
No one spoke.
Then the man smiled, took out a notepad, and added, - There is something you should know before this gets any larger.