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Right. A mysterious man you never met before is suddenly offering you a deal. A deal that doesn't cost money and that only seems to benefit you. Where have you heard this before?
One of your many aunts, God bless her heart, would rattle on and on about demons. How they'd try to trick you into becoming a servant of the devil with honeyed words and promises. They'd come to you bearing the coat of the righteous and pure, she said.
You never paid much attention to her ramblings, really. She thought that Spongebob of all things was the devil, for crying out loud! However, you still can't shake her words from your head.
You're obviously not going to rush in and blindly accept one of his deals. You also don't want to hang up; you want to get something out of this.
"Uh huh. What's the catch?"
"There is no catch-"
You loudly clear your throat in order to interrupt him. "Deals go both ways, 'Mike', but it appears I'm the only one benefiting."
"It's a generous offer, I will admit. Is that such a bad thing, Mr. Alex?"
"It's suspicious, that's what it is. What are we giving up? No deal unless the terms are clear and we have full information."
The line goes cold but not completely dead. You can still make out the loud, roaring winds but nothing for the man on the phone himself.
"Guess he ain't comin' back." Anthony loudly scoffs. "Even abno phones have scam callers these days, eh? hang up already, will ya?"
"No." 'Mike' finally speaks up after what felt like eons of silence. "I am not at liberty to go into specifics, but I can tell you what 'price' I'm obligated to ask of you."
"<span class="mu-b">Time</span>, my good sirs. That's what I deal in. I offer boons in exchange for time. Seconds and minutes are chump change these days, so I deal in hours."
"Good, honest hours." A light chuckle crackles from the receiver. "Sometimes days, rarely years. You don't tip the pizza man a thousand when he delivers the goods, right? Our connection is too unstable for large transactions regardless."
"I know you don't have much time left in here, Alex, so why not spend it on one of my deals instead? My world needs that time more than you do."
You can't really say you're shocked when he starts babbling about time as if he were talking about dollar bills.
"This ain't gonna kill us if we do humor one of yer deals, right?" Anthony asks the obvious question.
"No, no, no point killing a customer." He almost sounds offended at the accusation. To be fair, all of this is still impressively shady. "It's not good business! I take excess time. Time you were going to waste anyways!"
"Uh huh."
"Right." Neither of you are particularly convinced.
"Well, I have two requests before I take one of your deals."
"Yes?" Mike is trying his best to hide his excitement. He must be desperate for someone to take one of his deals.
"One. I want to be able to negotiate the price of this deal and any future deals. No more hiding what the price is next time, okay?"
