Artifice - Man x Man - Book Six

Chapter 30

How did I not suspect that those words would leave this man's lips? 

I settle back against the mattress, as upset as I am, I know better than to explode in front of someone who holds the fate of my friends in his unknown clutches. Marcello seems calm, I trust him as much as I can trust a stranger, it seems that there is a way to play this that would lend my friends safety and keep my abilities out of the clutches of this establishment. 

He doesn't look at me but I can see his pulse is pounding in the crook of his neck, giving away that careful facade, perhaps praying that he can trust our very future in my youthful hands. Must I be forty before people take me seriously? 

"Mr.Malcom was it? I had an acquaintance that you remind me very much of." 

A modern-day Mr.Balan, only this man was not nearly as overweight and smelt much more like a box of men's cologne than cigar smoke and deception. 

"Can't say I quite trusted him, either."

"You can trust me." He reassures me smoothly. 

My expression showed him the errors in his words, and he decided on a different approach. 

"I'm not asking for your trust, per se. I'm askin' that you think about what I'm offerin' you. It's a free pass to continue your work, but you keep us in the loop." 

The loop? 

"Keep us in the know, ya know? Are you from Romania? Marcello says your files have been lost; we need to get you a new identification tag. You could have saved this city, ya know. People's gunna want a name." The longer he talks, the more he reminds me of Eddie, and that accent begins to come through. I find I have a good habit of running people's patience thin. 

I stare directly ahead, watching the scene flicker across the television screen that hangs overhead. Some drama, I suppose, where a woman is standing defiantly in the face of a rather concerned-looking gentleman. Television hadn't been something that had caught my attention before, it was hard to understand, people trapped in a contraption only they weren't actually there. 

Books played in real-time, Rhea tells me. Why did I feel like this was just like that? A story, they were telling me what I wanted to hear to pacify me. I was used to being the more powerful man in the room, and it made people in my time nervous, why not these people? How did they have any hope of controlling me? My friends. They had my friends. 

"I wish to speak to your master."

"My master?" 

Marcello chuckles at my terminology. "Nicolas has a funny way of saying your boss."

"The president?" David demands, bewildered.

I nod. "If that's who is above you then so be it." It's David's turn to laugh once more as he takes me in. 

"Save more than a city, and you can talk to the president, we still don't know what you are, Nicolas. I suggest you make more reasonable demands before someone finds you to be a clown and stops taking interest in you. You're facing a lot of jail time that I don't think you comprehend. I'm trying to be nice to you, I don't have to cooperate with you, but I think you have talents that could greatly benefit our world in its current state. 

If it weren't for Marcello vouching for you, I can promise that you'd be on the dissection table so we can figure out what the hell inside you makes you do what you do. Now." He smooths his hair over, stiffly moving his hand over the locks. 

His thinner face makes me envision him as a rat, maybe a snake if he had a better bone structure. No, I think I much prefer the image of a rat. 

"Are you willing to work with us? Ya don't have to come to my church or even shake my hand, all I'm askin' is that you tell us what your plans are and-"