Mask of Humanity

Nicolai and John matched gazes, hands still half-extended, Nicolai considering John’s refusal to return the SMG he’d seized from the Chosen.

He knew why John wanted the gun, even though it had no ammo. It was because John assumed that back at Nicolai’s safe place, there would be ammo. Nicolai’s Imbued items were useful and valuable, no doubt, but difficult to use and of questionable use in a fight, and anyway, none of the humans understood them very well. Even if Nicolai had them all, the balance of power wouldn’t be tipped too far, or so John apparently believed.

A fully loaded submachine-gun, on the other hand, was something the effectiveness of which everyone in the room was fully aware. If he had one he could kill all of them and there was nothing John nor any of the rest could do to stop him, and any idiot could see that. But, Nicolai had no ammo for the SMG, and until such could be found, it was no more than a chunk of metal and plastic.

‘Fine. For now,’ said Nicolai, and John gave him a slow nod then held the glove back out. Nicolai took it. ‘Thank you,’ he said, with a slow nod of his own, though certainly no thanks should be given for the return of what was his. Still, it was a necessary part of his performance. He pulled the glove on then turned to the young woman. ‘And you have my ring.’ He gestured to where it glinted on her finger, and held his hand out for it.

She pulled a face. ‘It’s mine,’ she whined, and turned to John. ‘Dad, don’t make me—‘

John cut her off with a raised hand. ‘Give it back to him, Azure.’

Dad? Nicolai’s gaze moved between them, thoughtful, his understanding of the group dynamic growing.

The girl—Azure—scowled furiously at Nicolai, then pulled the ring off her finger and slapped it into the middle of his palm with a smack. ‘Bastard,’ she muttered.

His control slipped and he gave a big, gleaming grin in return, a grin that said fuck you very much and made her scowl all the harder, then he wrestled his face back into a placid mask and looked to the man with a bionic eye and his rapier.

The man with the rapier looked back. He had Nicolai’s belt and had cinched it around his waist, on top of his original belt, the rapier there in its sheath. His arms were crossed and he looked to have no intentions of taking it off.

Nicolai stepped towards him. He nodded to the belt and the rapier.

‘You’ve got something of mine,’ he said.

The man was silent, staring at him. His human eye was fixed on Nicolai’s, but his bionic was moving up and down, taking in every detail about Nicolai, scanning him over and over.

The silence stretched. Nicolai could feel the rising tension, the gazes of the others. This one was a little tougher than the rest of them, he could tell that. This one had something to prove. He considered looking to John, reminding the man of their agreement. No. He had the impression this was a test of some kind. Based on their expectant gazes and bated breath, they’d all known this man would be a sticking point.

So. They wanted to see if he was serious about things. If he could be scared off and held down. He connected to his Seed and spread its Soul Sense, keeping tabs on the others, making sure no one tried anything while he was focused on this one.

He slipped forward, watching the man with the eye carefully. He shifted his stance and prepared to strike, made the fact of it obvious. The man’s face drew into a grimace, a sneer, and he began to move, too.

They both moved at once. A punch, a feint, a catch, grabbing and twisting. Nicolai controlled himself, moving careful, an aim in mind. They ended both holding the arms of the other. Each had drawn a knife, and each had grabbed the other by the wrist, controlling the opposing knife-hand.

It was a draw, or so it seemed.

‘Karl,’ came John’s voice, right on cue. ‘Hand it over, stop making trouble.’

Bionic Eye—Karl—grinned at Nicolai. He shoved back and Nicolai let himself be moved, stepping away, gazing coolly into the man’s human eye.

‘Fine,’ said Karl, tucking the knife away. He smirked at Nicolai as he moved to un-clinch the belt.

Nicolai was silent, waiting. Karl thought they’d drawn in that little tussle, they all did. This was by design. If he’d shown his true skills and simply dominated Karl in an instant they would have even more reason to be wary, to be afraid of him. It would create another wall he’d have to somehow get over or through in order to be considered a proper member of their group. They would be more wary and cautious towards him in general.

But if they thought they stood reasonable chance of handling him in a fight they would have fewer concerns. At the same time, he couldn’t have let himself lose the little scuffle. A balance had to be maintained. It wouldn’t do to be a push-over; that would encourage things in the opposite direction.

Karl smirk broadened as he held the belt and rapier out to Nicolai, human eye glinting. Nicolai smiled back, and was pleased when none of his true feelings made it into that smile. He gave the man a nod of “thanks” as well as he took it, then he went to the table to equip himself with his shimmer poncho. He was thinking that Karl was well on the way to earning a similar fate as the lawyer.

###

As the group gathered their things and prepared themselves for the trek, Nicolai stood in the corridor outside and considered. The big woman with the bionic arm stood a short distance away, leaning against a wall and watching him. He gave her a pleasant smile. She stared back without expression. While he stood there, he washed the blood from his shimmer poncho with a water bottle the group had lent him. There were some holes in it, but they were small. With the blood removed it would work fine for his current needs. Most of the blood was on the inside, at least.

Was this the right move, inviting this gaggle of unruly people back to his sacred safe place? What if they ruined everything? He was certain that Maxine on the radio would approve of his decision, and that therefore it was the moral and right thing to do.

But it was just so messy, so uncertain, and he knew his control of the situation was likely to slip. Worse still, the issue of his madness. He was keeping a relatively tight lid on things at the moment. He felt a degree of pride that he’d resisted the urge to kill them all, which he knew wasn’t much to be proud of, but even so—progress.

His mood was overall very good. This was due to his success in resisting his murderous impulses, alongside the fact he’d gotten back everything that was his excepting the gun—which for now was useless anyway—plus the knowledge that once he’d taken them to his safe place he could have one of them take his band off. All of this had given rise to a slow swelling of satisfaction and joy that even now helped him keep the darkness down.

But it wouldn’t always stay down. He recalled the time he’d lost it completely in front of Kleos, how he’d been searching for something to hurt and kill, and only the knowledge that harming Kleos would break their Contract and lead to Heaven enacting whatever judgement it would enact upon him had kept the head safe.

There was no Contract between him and these people, and his two remaining Contract slots would only let him set one up with John and one other, the benefits of which was questionable, possibly a waste. He doubted he could set up a contract with all of them, as a group. Did he trust himself around them?

No. I do not.

But how could he grow and improve, learn to resist the dark urges, without a reason to do so? These people would give him a reason, right? It was like his brief experiment with Harold. Shacking up with this group could be considered as part two, the continuation of that experiment. He would be forced to improve his methods and his control, to become a better man, whatever that meant.

The old man was one such example. Nicolai knew he should feel bad for what he’d done to the old man, even if in the moment it had felt justified and extremely satisfying.

The old man had been the only one to stand up for him, earlier on, the only one to show any kind of moral backbone. He was worthy of respect in that regard. In fact, initially Nicolai had been feeling something like actual gratitude toward the man. But then he had killed the lawyer, and this had apparently crossed some kind of line, from the old man’s perspective; in spite of Nicolai’s obvious justification. The same principles that had initially put him on Nicolai’s side, had then become a source of enmity.

Nicolai had not reacted kindly to this change. He was pretty sure his actions had in some way contravened the vague moral code he was attempting to construct. It was possible that he owed the old man an… apology? Nicolai shook his head, unsure. Ultimately, he’d needed to declaw the old man’s arguments so as to move past his murdering of the lawyer. He had done so in typical fashion; ruthless, but effective. It was quite likely that the old man would not be forgiving him, at least not anytime soon. What was done was done.

Beyond working with them for his own vague attempts to be more human, there were also more practical reasons to group up. It is said that four hands are better than two, and in principle Nicolai agreed with this. Manpower was always useful. He couldn’t be everywhere all the time. But other humans were not entirely reliable, which led to the next question.

Could he trust them, around him?

Another no.

He didn’t know them, and things truly had gotten off to a bad start with him murdering the lawyer and tormenting the old man. He felt his actions were justified, at least the killing the lawyer part, but it would be entirely understandable if they felt otherwise, and most likely they did.

At least some of them would be considering him a threat and thus thinking something along the lines of: once he’s shown us his safe place, we should kill him. Most wouldn’t be thinking that in a proper, conscious, this-is-the-plan way, but more a kind of subconscious awareness that it was an option, an awareness which would be mutual between them. That said, others would be actively thinking of and even voicing that option in private to one another, testing it out, seeing how people reacted. He had no doubt that Mr. Bionic Eye, Karl, had already aired the possibility.

In his view, with humans, rationality and morality were rarely all that important. People tended to say that these things were important to them when making decisions, but from what he’d seen the foundation of most choices ran much deeper.

First instincts, then emotions, and finally cultural norms absorbed over one’s life. Only after the event would the higher reasoning come into it, as people began to look at what they had done and start trying to rationalise and justify it, working out reasons why what they had done was in line with their stated beliefs and morals, or finding excuses for why they had deviated from these beliefs, re-framing it all until everything neatly fit and they could move on.

Nicolai knew this not only from his own experience, but also detailed study.

He had always known he was odd, that he didn’t fit in. He’d always found it difficult—in the rare times he had tried—to relate to other humans. However, he had recognised early on in life that learning to understand other humans, and most importantly, to fit in with them when necessary, was of great importance.

As such he had made a point of studying psychology and sociology, not only in theoretical terms, but most especially with a focus on practical matters. This had led to significant time spend reading all kinds of books focused on subjects such as “how to talk to people” “how to be charming” “how to convince people” “how to make people like you” and so on, and then practising such techniques on real people. Over time, he had become (at least in his own estimation) relatively good at appearing to be a real, totally-normal-and-sane human. Most especially, he had become skilled at manipulating, deceiving, reading, predicting, convincing, and blending in with other people; these skills had naturally had been his main reasons for bothering to learn about the subject.

His focus had eventually come to rest on humanity’s development as animals, through the process of evolution.

Humans were evolved to live in small groups; tribes. To act in a way that allowed them to fit in with the tribe, to work well in the tribe, and to be suspicious of those not in the tribe. Despite it being thousands of years since the need for this behaviour, and though in the modern age many humans were aware of and sought to avoid the foibles of their tribalistic nature, it was often inevitable.

And in a situation like this, humans were especially likely to fall back into tribalism. Nicolai was not a part of their tribe and had killed someone who was. Justification didn’t matter. Reason didn’t matter. The fact they hadn’t even liked the guy didn’t matter.

Nicolai was an outsider, and worse still, a dangerous outsider. A murderer and a Raw. He intended to do his best to become a part of the tribe so long as he was with them, joining the in-group and gaining protection, but until he’d succeeded in doing so, he would need to watch them very carefully.

He moved on, dismissing the thoughts. The current challenge was getting them back to the safe place, then having them remove his band. The challenge of building a working relationship and trust would come later, if at all. He could always simply leave and find someplace else, or just… best not to think too much on the other option. Not unless it’s necessary. He checked his map and busied himself plotting out a route that would avoid the areas he knew the Chosen frequented.