受信箱

[newpest]

武 Лев Ковач

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[newpest]

[Finally some good fucking conversation. Kovacs reacts to it faster than he'd like.]

Someone who... scares people, hurts them, kills them. For their own reasons.

It's political. If you agree with them, they're freedom fighters. If not... eh.

[hiddenblade]

For your own reasons. [A thoughtful hum.] I have known men who kill for love or money or to survive, but I find it difficult to believe they would be called terrorists. They do not have the reach, if they have a sword-arm at all.

What freedoms are being fought for, in your time?

[newpest]

For their faction's reasons, fine.

I knew somebody once, she said, if you wanna imagine the future, picture a mass grave that goes on forever. You gotta be more specific about rights, pal.

[hiddenblade]

[Wry:]

Are we friends already?

[More serious again, but these are easy opinions, hard-won, long-held.]

So the future is a mass grave. Of course it is –– no man escapes his fate. But if I am to imagine them, I would not condemn anyone who saw fit to see that there is one tyrant's grave instead of thousands of poor men and women.

[newpest]

[There's a lot he could say to that, so he doesn't.]

How'd you define a tyrant, then?

[hiddenblade]

A man would expand his power with the sufferings of others. He may be a king, or a king's sycophant, or merely an aspirational man who sees an opportunity and grasps it. He promises men a pittance to do his work while he amasses influence and wealth. He extorts and bullies, and when people refuse him, he takes even more out of spite. He dresses himself in ermine and jewels that a poor man could not afford in a thousand lifetimes. Lives are nothing to him –– even his own family may be sacrificed for what he believes he is destined for. He cares nothing for approval.

I have met many.

[newpest]

Yeah, we got those. Life expectancy somewhere in the three hundreds. Real charmers.

[hiddenblade]

[Ezio gives a small sound of disgust at the mere idea. Someone's slacking, in the future.]

Three hundred. No man need live that long. How long do the poor live?

[newpest]

Brutish, ugly and short.

They're called meths, from Methuselah. It's some bible thing. You familiar?

[hiddenblade]

[Unsurprising, and yet even more disgusting. Still, it amuses him a touch to hear "some bible thing"; the foundational text of the most powerful church in his time, some ambiguous thing.]

They should be named for Enoch, who lived three hundred years or so. His son Methuselah died aged nine-hundred sixty-nine.

I was raised Catholic.

[newpest]

Yeah, I hear that's big some places.

I worked for meths. If I wasn't here, I still would be.

[hiddenblade]

People who are not Catholics in my time are disdained, exiled, or sometimes even burned as heretics. I was surprised to hear people here speak so confidently about their lack of belief.

What would you be doing for them?

[newpest]

Perks of being from a place without any.

What they paid me to. Mutually beneficial.

[hiddenblade]

Do you enjoy what you do?

[newpest]

Which part?

[hiddenblade]

Tell me what you do, then. What are you paid for?

[newpest]

At the moment, solving a murder. Cleanest shit I've done in years. Used to do sleeve smuggling.

[hiddenblade]

[The sound of paper turning as he double checks on the meaning of "sleeve." The broad strokes are easy to wrap his head around.]

Solving a murder is the least destructive thing I have ever heard of a tyrant doing. Is it preferable to your other work?

[newpest]

Yeah, well, it's his own murder. Vanity project.

Worse. I have to talk to the fucker almost every day.

[hiddenblade]

Maledetto pezzo di merda.

[Well, it's a miserable position to be in. But no matter what a piece of work Bancroft is, it's still Kovacs' actions that have landed him here.]

What are the consequences of walking away? Assuming you would even have somewhere else preferable to go.

[newpest]

Наздравље.

I go back in the dark, the body goes back on ice. Do I gotta explain how stacks work? I thought you guys got debriefed.

[hiddenblade]

I know what stacks are. I also know you have done this mercenary work since well before Bancroft, presumably with some choice in the matter. You did not want to walk away then? Did that change when the choice had been taken from you?

[newpest]

What can I say? I like being my own boss.

[hiddenblade]

Good. [That's a start.]

Join me for a meal tonight. We will get to know each other, one man to another. Talk about this mercenary business again tomorrow.

[No escaping it, but there needs to be a moment to settle.]

[newpest]

Your place or mine?