The Manhunt/Chapter 10

“We have been walking outside this lawyer’s office for five minutes already," Bastion stared at the work address neatly written in his five-year-plan. "Are you sure we're in the right place?"

"Of course! Only a lawyer's office is this unapproachable."

Having attempted to catch the next guy at home, only to find he lived in an apartment that required a swipe, led the two trying to catch him during an office lunchbreak.

So far, that attempt involved loitering outside.

The building was old and worn down, and it was almost impossible to find the door. The font of the lawyer's sign was large and intimidating.

“We could parkour in,” Airmid suggested, straightening up.

“Neither of us have the athletic aptitude for that.”

Before Bas had known that Airmid wore fake ties, the physician had looked respectable. But now, outside the law firm, he could pick out the creases of their unironed button up, the disarray of that tweed blazer, and how irritatingly fake that tie of damned lies was.

He sighed, and added, “Valerian, you disturb me.”

Airmid looked startled, and bowed their shoulders. “I suppose you’re right. Parkouring is the equivalent of breaking in."

“That was not my point,” Bastion said, and sighed.

“Benoît! Benoît! There’s a bunch of kid punks loitering outside our office. Go shoo them away,” the principal of the law firm burst into Gabriel’s cubicle.

“Yes, sir,” said Gabriel Benoît, and he left swiftly.

He was in his late teens, a tall stringy young man of 18, with no prospects or direction. With some luck and decent grades, he found himself clerking for a young lawyer. Still, that job paid mostly in experience and not cash, and he found it tiring doing coffee runs and photocopying papers and shredding sensitive documents.

With a sigh, he pushed open the back door. “Hexcusez-moi, gentlemen, but I would kindly like to request that you two get lost,” he said, looking up to the two with a tired gaze.

In those eyes, Bastion saw his mother. “Gabriel Benoît,” he said, without skipping a beat. “The man we wished to see."

The ominous, mysterious remark was met with a simple eyebrow raise. “Who are you two, and why do you wish to see me?"

He would have given that spiel, that speech he had prepared, but those words had frightened the people previous. Here, Bastion was ready to break away from the script he had written and attempt something new. And grimm damn it, maybe do something even impulsive.

“Hello, cousin. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

After work, without the slightest hesitation, Gabriel Benôit drove Bastion and Airmid to his apartment. “Cousin, you say,” he muttered to them. “Cousin. Surely, that doesn’t mean I’m in line to inherit the destiny that was yours.”

“You assumed correct.”

“Hmm,” he hummed in contemplation.

“Look, I’m here to offer it to you, no strings attached. Everything you get is everything in the tale. I’ll throw in some extra cash to keep you afloat, and a fair bit of tutoring on how you’re supposed to act.”

They were at a red light now. Gabriel rolled down the windows and lit a cigarette. “We’re all going to die anyway. Might as well live fast and die young."

While Gabriel was looking forlornly out of the car window, Bastion took a quick glance at the notes in the five year plan. "Are you... familiar with the Princess Mayblossom?" he said.

"Vaguely," said Gabriel. "D'Aulnoy is overshadowed by Perrault in these parts."

In this day and age, you mean, though Bastion. He was oft bitter about how Charles Perrault had solidified as the quintessional French author, when there was a Baroness who deserved it far, far more.

"All the more reason to fulfil one of her stories, restore that now-lost prestige."

To Gabriel, this apparent cousin, was quite compelling. "One thing. Why did you give it up?"

"To honour Madame D'Aulnoy, there's nothing more important than the accurate preservation of her tales," he said. "To say that I am an accurate Fanfarinet would be a serious reach."

"And you think I'm a more accurate one?"

"We'll see."

The spellevator of Gabriel's apartment was broken, so the three found themselves taking the stairs to the fourth floor. Halfway through level two and three, Gabriel sharply paused.

"How do I know that you two aren't axe murderers?" he said, and with a gesture to Airmid's suitcase, "especially when you're carrying that."

With a quick show of bookmark IDs - the standard identification for those with legacies - and a check of a Fairytale Characters Database, the man was convinced, and soon let them in.

It was a humble apartment. A beaten copy of Voltaire laid on the floor, papers and notes messy on a chair. It was the apartment of someone whom could be readily inducted into the life of a legacy.

The suitcases DNA test was, of course, not definite. One cannot prove paternity when one does not have the maternal sample. Still, half of the short tandem repeats seemed to match, and it seemed convincing enough.

("This is bad applied science," Airmid muttered.)

“You know, if you were going to take on the role as the next Ambassador Fanfarinet,” said Bastion, "it might be worth telling us about your life?”

“My life story…” Gabriel sighed, and looked up from his mug of hot chocolate. “Why must you ask about something like that?”

A smile almost tugged at Bastion’s lips. “Tragic backstories builds villains.”

Or, you know, tragic backstories can create characters who learn from the world’s mistakes and actively seek to do good and change the world and makes things better. But whatever. Bastion Fanfarinet did not believe in that sort of innate goodness.

“Father left, mother raised me,” Gabriel began. “That’s it. That’s all.”

“Nothing else? No parental death, no heartbreak, nothing?” Bastion prodded. “Surely…”

“I mean, my mother did pass in my teenage years and I had to cut down on my schooling to look after her and prepare for a funeral,” he said, beginning to list things out using his fingers. “Then, I had to work in food service since I was 16, trying to take night classes. Now, out of a stroke of luck with a sudden benefactor, I’m a receptionist for a lawyer.”

“… a sudden benefactor.”

“Yes,” Gabriel said, and looked up. “Did you two have anything to do with it? It’s been tugging at the back of my mind, but I’d assume so.”

''No, of course not. I didn’t even know you existed until like a month ago'', Bastion wanted to say, but kept his mouth shut. It seemed like a difficult matter and although he had already pried, it was too delicate to pry further.

“That’s not my place to say,” was the phrase he eventually settled on.

“Oh. That’s understandable, I suppose."

“Look,” Bastion took out his five year plan, checking it for emphasis. “All we want is for you - right now, at least - to spend a weekend with us? That’s as long as we’re planning to stay in France, anyway.”

“What about my job?”

“You don’t work on weekends.”

“But I have files! Work!”

“You can bring that with you. And in case you need more temptation, how much do you make per hour? And how many hours of work do you require daily?”

Gabriel gave him a figure.

Without a hint of hesitation, Bastion Fanfarinet took out a chequebook, wrote a cheque, and dangled it in front of Gabriel’s face. “It’s triple what you earn. Weekly.”

“As in, you’re paying me this weekly, or you’re giving me triple of my weekly earnings for one weekend with you two.”

“Well, if you want to be specific, it’s the latter."

Fanfarinet’s son stared at the cheque. His eyes were like corridors of fire, he was seized by the desire to simply grab the cheque, run off with it, start a new life. Yet, that piece of paper wouldn’t last him more than a few weeks.

There was no harm in waving the cheque yet again.

“Say, if I did hang out with you, would there be more of–?” Gabriel gestured to the cheque.

“Undoubtedly.”

“I’m in.”

A small sense of guilt flared up in Bastion, but it soon quelled. Sure, he might have tempted a young man working pay-check to pay-check into signing himself up for a deadly destiny with money, but this was purely utilitarianism.

It was for the good of a Madame D’Aulnoy fairytale.

In the faint distance, was the sound of bell chimes. One, two, three, four, five, six.

“Well, then, cousin,” Bastion said, standing up. “Shall we take you to dinner as a family reunion?"