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"I’ve heard the rumors Any true?"
"Most" He pullsred pepper sauce over thes I create Of course I’ Silver by those pretentious Peerless jackasses But I a lords of twentieth-century Europe I understand there is power in being practical, in owning things People Ideas Infrastructure So much more important than money So much more insidious than"--he makes a funny motion with his hand--"spaceships and razors Tell me, does a ship matter if you can’t supply and transport the food to feed its crew?"
"You own this place, don’t you?" I ask
"In a manner" He smiles with too much teeth "I feel I hteen e left the Institute We are noenty I have been two years in exile, and noish to return hoh "If you have been paying attention at all, you’ll know I don’t have your father’s ear"
"Paying attention …" He shares a glance with Victra and leans forward "Reaper I am the attention Do you kno much of the communications industry I have acquired?"
"No"
"Good Thatit properly I’ve acquired more than twenty percent Withwhy? Certainly families like Victra’s do not consider themselves dirtied by business After all, the Julii have partaken in trade for centuries But media is different for us Slimy Leave that to Quicksilver and his ilk So ould soe dirty his hands with it? Well, I want you to iine media as a pipeline to a city in the desert" He waves around "Our metaphorical desert I can only provide thirty percent of the content of what coh that pipeline, but I can affect one hundred percent of it My water contaminates the rest That is the nature of media Do I want this city in the desert to hallucinate? Do I want its inhabitants to writhe in pain? Do I want them to rise up?" He sets his chopsticks down "It all starts hat I want"
"And what do you want?" I ask
"Your head," he says
Our eyesreverberations through the body A palpable discoold orbs He’s so young My age, but there’s a childishness to him, a curiosity despite the ancient cast of his eyes, that makes him feel like a perversity It’s not that I feel cruelty and evil radiating fro told me how, as a boy, he killed a baby lion because he wanted to see its insides to understand hoorked
"You have a weird sense of huet my jokes So many prickly Peerless these days Duels! Honor! Blood! All because they’re bored There’s no one left to fight So goryda a point"
"Ah, yes" The Jackal runs his hand through his slicked-back hair, like I’ve seen his father do "I brought you here because Pliny is an enemy of mine He’s made my life very difficult Even penetrated my harem Do you kno h soto make you feel sorry for e of it"