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They're all coated in oil. His words. They're coated in oil, and the oil's all dripping onto you, and seeping in through your eardrums, and now you're so coated in it you can hardly think. You don't know what this means. You don't know if what Mr. Suit is saying is true or not true. Why does he want you to stock this thing so bad? If it's free, he can just stick it out on the street corner. Or distribute it from his own HQ, which is right there. If it's publicity, he could put up signs. Banners. Margo is dead and nobody's in charge now to stop him.
"Roscoe?"
You dig an entire flake of wood off the corner of the counter. Mr. Suit is still standing right there, and he has to be over six foot, maybe six-two or six-three, with hands like two-by-fours and a neck like a load-bearing column. His big suit's shoulders are padded. This is a guy who's used to being the big man in the room. He probably doesn't get a lot of people ignoring his presence. Except you, right?
"Son, I'm thinking you might need a little something for your brain health."
You wish you could see his eyes. You always hate it when people wear sunglasses indoors— not that it happens all that often underwater. (Mr. Suit is a rare bird.) With the glasses, the teeth, the spray-tan, the pure size of him, he hardly even looks like a person. He's like a caricature, or something. Like the suit itself came to life and grew a guy inside it. Like <span class="mu-i">he's</span> Real+. His Real has been Plussed. He is Plussing you just by talking to you. It's unnerving, when you look at it like that. And when he's looking at you like that, all the way through his sunglasses.
"I—" you say, "I— can I get all that in writing? So if I stock it, and the Court shows up, I can show them—"
"Aha! Smart thinking! I don't see why not." Mr. Real pulls out an orange clicky pen and a roll of notepaper before you can even offer. He bends down to write.
While he isn't looking, you retreat, carefully, to the wall behind you, and lean against it, and knock your head into it. What is going <span class="mu-i">on?</span> He's doing something. He's doing something to you specifically, you think, you don't know. Like he's... he's persuading you somehow. More than natural. His words slide right into your brain and stick there. All because he's... angry at you? He's angry you ignored him? It's like a— a power thing. Exactly like Lucky, except Lucky had the integrity to go get a bunch of clowns and implicitly threaten you. You know, like a regular person. This guy, you don't even know what to call him, but it isn't 'regular.' Not at all 'regular.'
(2/3)
