The Assassin

April 10th, 2034

New York, New York, Sol HQ

I was still working on the Identify conversion when I received a rather problematic message on my phone from Christina. It simply read, "Mateo is coming."

Well, I couldn't say that it was unexpected. I looked longingly at my work before putting it all away. The second that bastard left I was going to get back to it.

I decided that it would be a good bet that gifts would placate Mateo, so I headed down to R&D to look for something. Amusingly, no one bothered me while I picked through their lab. It would have been nice to give him a powerful spellbook but I didn't think we had any tier-4 ones around. Then again, if he had been active for the last few years—unlike me—then he would likely be in the range of tier-5 or 6 spells by now.

After picking through all of the miscellaneous things in the lab, nothing felt particularly worthy of someone of Mateo's status. He was likely to laugh at me no matter what, so I gave up and found Macy. Thankfully, her team had placed the spatial enchantment onto a few more things. I ended up picking out a bracelet as my gift.

Heading back upstairs, I found Christina.

"I got a little gift for him," I informed her. "How are things going on your end?"

"We're preparing the restaurant on the 80th floor for him. After analyzing his past eatery habits, the chefs are confident in making a 6-course meal that suits his palette." Despite the relatively short notice, Christina seemed to be calm in organizing everything.

"Well, that's good. What's our estimated time until arrival?"

"T-minus 10 minutes until nuclear detonation."

"It's likely 5 minutes then. Okay, let me go get changed and I'll be ready."

I ran to the elevator and got changed into a low-key suit and took a moment to spruce myself up before heading to the lobby.

6 minutes after speaking with Christina, a hypercar pulled up in front of the building at a reckless speed. Barely after it stopped, a short man appeared next to me, leaning his arm around the back of my neck.

"T-man, how are you doing? It's been what, 5 years now?"

I weaseled my way out of Mateo's arm and spun around to shake his hand.

As he accepted the handshake, I said, "Indeed. Long time no see. How have you been?"

He laughed and put his arm on my back, guiding me back inside. "I've been keeping well. Life's a grand and beautiful journey, after all."

"That's good to hear. Well, I did find a little something for you." I pulled the bracelet from my jacket pocket and tossed it to him. "Sorry it's nothing better but we're just starting to work on magical items now."

"Oh, this is cute. I'll give it to my daughter. I'm sure she'll love it."

We continued to make small talk as I directed him to the 80th floor where we'd have dinner. The massive table the dinner staff had set up was next to the window, overlooking the sprawling city below. Having the entire floor to ourselves felt a little lonely, though.

After we settled in a bit, I looked across the table at Mateo.

"So, what brings you to my lofty tower spanning the heavens themselves?" I joked to him.

"Oh you know, a bit of this, a bit of that. I had some personal business with those society cabróns, but I wanted to see how my little buddy was doing. I heard you've done some pretty drastic things lately."

"I just decided to take the company in a different direction. There's nothing too strange about that, I think."

"No, no. Not your company. I meant the disastrous subspace expedition you led a few days back." Mateo had a goading grin on his face as he spoke.

I held back the reaction to slam a fist down on the table. It seemed that I had truly underestimated the power of other people's information networks. I was unsure how the news had reached Mateo, but it didn't bode well for me.

"Right, that." I tried to force a nonchalant scoff. "Mistakes were made but I got out alive. I'm sure it isn't very interesting." I raised a hand and a waiter came over immediately, offering us a platter of cheeses and a bottle of wine.

Mateo took a handful of cheese and shoved it into his mouth before saying, "Of course, of course. That's why there was no public announcement of so many deaths, right?"

Seeing as he was going to be a pain, I poured us both glasses of wine and took a swig of mine.

"What do you want?" I sighed.

"Let's call it 5 million, for old times' sake." Despite the ridiculous price he asked, Mateo casually kept munching on the cheeses. He looked like a child that said the biggest number they could think of for the sake of it.

Upon hearing the sum, all I could do was laugh at him. "You know I can't do that, man. If you need to release the information, fine. Or, we could just chat and have a nice dinner and then you can be on your way."

Mateo flashed a dark look at me, but I wasn't afraid—he couldn't kill me. For one, his reputation would be ruined. Secondly, the renown of the oh-so-precious Divines would be tarnished, and Lucian wouldn't like that.

"Fine, Tom." He spoke plainly, with no goading to be found in his voice now—just ire. "I see you've grown a pair in the last few years. But, if you think you're safe just because—"

"Mr. Serrano, please do not make idle threats while staying with us." I heard a familiar voice and looked over my shoulder to see Christina walking over to the table.

This was horrible. Mateo may not have it in him to kill me, but Christina…

I nervously laughed. "Let's calm down. Once again, let's just have a nice dinner—"

Mateo scoffed at me and leered at Christina. "You've got some divinity-less bitch sticking up for you now? So that's where your newfound balls came from."

Instantly, he was next to Christina. He unleashed a brutal wave of killing intent as he stared her down.

"Mateo! Don't go there." I felt a lethal anger drip from my voice.

"What're you do about it? You're more scared of Lucian than I am." He seemed unthreatened by me, but curious about where this was going.

"I can forget my fear for long enough to rip you in half. Let's not go there." I had to attempt to diffuse the situation one last time. A serious fight between us would involve most people in this building's deaths. But, there were lines I refused to let him trample over.

I took a quick glance at Christina's face. She looked mortally terrified but was trying to put on an expression of bravado.

"Hey, I was just joking." Mateo suddenly started laughing as if nothing had happened. "It was just a joke, guys, come on."

Once again, Mateo was sitting in front of me, grabbing pieces of cheese. Before I could get a word in, he started talking, looking me dead in the eyes.

"It's good to see you're unwilling to roll over like a dog, Tom. But, a dog should at least recognize that it's a dog." His eyes flashed at Christina. "Well, I'll be off then. It's been good catching up. Oh, and thanks for the cheese."

Without a word more, Mateo disappeared.

I gasped a deep, deliberate breath before uttering, "That went better than expected. Sorry you had to deal with that."

Christina seemed shell-shocked by the wanton bloodthirstiness Mateo had exuded. She half-heartedly nodded and started to walk toward the elevator in a daze.

I popped out of my seat and quickly caught up with her. On the way down, she spoke softly to me.

"He was really going to kill me."

I was unsure how to respond to a statement like that. I let it stay in the air a few seconds longer before replying, "Yeah, he was. I'm truly sorry for dragging you into this world. You were hired on a whim to be my assistant, not deal with lunatics. If you want to quit, I understand."

We spent the rest of the elevator ride in silence. I eventually returned to my office and sat down to finish my Identify work, but found that I didn't have it in me.

I had somehow forgotten how thoroughly depraved all of them were. I knew he was going to be problematic, but I didn't expect Mateo to try to extort millions out of me and threaten Christina so severely.

It was unforgivable.

Fortunately, he was a problem I could actually burn away for once. Perhaps not at the moment, but in the near future, I was sure that he'd find a fitting end by my hand.