I wanted to hear so badly, why didn’t I ask or force him to put the mobile on speaker. I moved forward and whispered to him, “Put it on speaker.”
He nodded and quickly removed the mobile from his ear and hit a button. I heard a ton of swearing, cuss words I hadn’t heard of in general use in a long time. He shrugged and waited patiently for the stream to stop.
“Bain, please tell me you don’t have anything to do with this,” Mister Towell said.
“I regret to inform you that I do.”
“You stole my generator? You could have bought the fucking thing instead.”
“Well, sir, your men will tell you that I got disavowed earlier tonight. And that I am unable to purchase from you any further.”
“Fuck Bain, what the fuck did you do?”
A new stream of cursing followed, apparently Mister Towell wasn’t waiting for a response. He instead chose the path of showing his displeasure.
“Listen, Bain, I would still deal with you even though you displeased those assholes. You know that right? But stealing from me is something I cannot let stand.”
Asher was quiet and appeared chagrined; I guess he didn’t know the marketeers as well as he had thought.
“Sir, I am sorry and thank you. I didn’t think you would take the chance of dealing with me again.”
“You are one of my best customers Asshole, of course, I would have seized the opportunity. But now we have a problem. A problem that needs dealing with.”
“You will return my generator, or I will, in fact, kill off the handsome boy you sent as a distraction. Is that clear Bain?”
“Yes sir, it is. Where and when?”
“Talk to Weeds for that. Fix this Bain.” Mister Towell said.
We heard him speak to someone in the background and the crackling of the phone passing hands. A new voice came on, “Hello Mister Bain.”
“Hello, Weeds.”
“I would say nice to hear from you again, but the circumstance would beg to differ.”
“Yes, they could be better.”
“Sorry about the disavow, those guys are a bit tightly wound.”
I almost laughed, he just had no idea. I wondered what the Man would do to the marketeers if they knew they were still willing to deal with Asher.
“Thanks, these things happen.”
“Yes, they do. Well then, we want you to return the generator within the hour to the warehouse. I assume Mister Towell brought across the severity of failure?”
“Yes Weeds, he did. I will be there within the hour.”
“Thank you Mister Bain, I hope to resume our business relationship after this unfortunate mishap.”
“I hope so to Weeds.”
Weeds hung up, and Asher disconnected from his side. He put the mobile on the table and heaved a massive sigh. I wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it, do I offer comfort in some fashion or just ignore it?
My hand chose for me, and it found itself resting on his arm, possibly a soft squeeze to show my consolation. He looked at me and smiled, sadness and regret in his eyes.
“After all, this time, people still surprise me. It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t just blindly follow the edict.”
“One thing that has become apparent is that we aren’t the only ones willing to stand against the Man,” I said, and slowly removed my hand.
I saw his other hand come up briefly; a thrill went through me. Did he want to stop me, to hold onto my hand? Not now, Eliza! Think of something else for fuck’s sake.
“Yeah, but in all your time how many were you aware of?” He said and walked away to my bookshelf.
I followed him, thinking on what he said. It was true, I only knew of disappearances. We were kept so isolated from others that half the world could be immortals, and I wouldn’t know about it.
I stopped, a horrible thought performing a gut punch that knocked the air out of me. All these years I had been torturing and killing, justifying some of them because my research showed me that these people were terrible. Our world would be better off without them in it.
How many were killed because they stood up to the Man and I the willing lackey just went with my instructions? I struggled to breathe as I realized that at least two-thirds of my kills were unjustified. My research was spotty enough that the person I thought must have been doing something wrong was in fact just like me.
Perhaps they just wanted to live, free of control. I was shaking, and ragged sobs raged through me. So many lives lost because of me, if I had only bothered to research more thoroughly.
The selfish part of me added that I could have had so many allies now, more than just Asher and Denny. The only two people I have let into my life in eighty years and look how that had worked out.
Asher’s arms were around me, holding me tightly. Not even his proximity made me feel better. In all my years I had never cried this much, now suddenly I had two breakdowns in one night. Hell, in a matter of hours I had cried more than I had on my wedding day or night.
“Eliza, you didn’t know who they were.”
That wasn’t comforting; I didn’t know because I didn’t want to know. I could have tried harder to figure out who those people were.
“Possibly but how do you know any of your research was even real? How much wasn’t just planted by the Man to help you do what they wanted?”
I finally got my crying under control and shook my head at him; I was a beautiful picture no doubt.
“It doesn’t matter; I did the deed at the end of the day. By my hand, many people died that probably shouldn’t have.”
I stood up with his help, and after a deep breath let go of him, it deeply disturbed me that I was content just to hang on to him. My composure so dented as to disappear nearly by now, but I attempted to fix my hair and even check on my clothes. Strange the things our minds choose to focus on at the craziest moments of our lives. Finally, I looked up and met Asher’s eyes.
“So, you can read my mind?”