Minder: Secrets of Mind

Chapter 18

The opera goes on for an hour and a half with a brief intermission, during which people throughout the chamber rush and fuss among themselves. Melissa uses the time to go to the bathroom and make some moves of her own, no doubt, while Gregory remains in his seat. Seemingly ignoring the world around him, he didn't need to take action. His movers and ears were already milling about the different crowds; with the time to think on plans and ideals during the first half of the Opera, many decisions on plans were already made and confirmed. Few would need his attention, and even then, the level of attention would be information gathering more than likely. His confidence in the secureness of his position was one of the most assured things there ever was, and only he knew to the extent by which that was so.

Internally, however, he was thinking about one of his few failures. Letting the child get away the first time he had a chance at her. If he had secured her then and hid her, his plans would have gone into effect probably a decade and a half ago. Sure, he had time and patience to wait for the right moments, but he fumbled on that field when he was younger. It was a hard lesson; just a few minutes quicker and a few positions better, and he would be over the charade he had to play amongst these people. People who disgusted him greatly, their affairs and way of things so outdated and stagnant. Their lack of progression was the very reason he could knock down any door he wanted and make any move he needed. Hurt anyone he needed to and defined a new future. He knew his mother would have judged him for thinking this way, and his grandmother would have likely disowned him.

They sought to change things from the inside and had a good record in doing so until they made themselves too much a target. These people may have played as if fun and comfortable living was all they wanted to secure for themselves, but they were no better than anyone they cast out from their society. To him, each and every last person that proudly flew the flag of the UHR or any of the Free Cities was more or less a waste. Trash to be used until it had fallen apart too much even to bring worth in being burned. Even his wife, he saw as nothing but a manipulative and selfish individual. The ultimate version of what these people could become, but she would only be that way so long as she didn't have his chair because once she did, like all the others, she would fall into stagnation and selfishly cling to power.

He struggled in his silence and loneliness to keep his disdain hidden; eyes were still on him. His eyes catch a little girl from another powerful family just across the chamber staring at him from the balcony railing. Initially, he offers her a smile. The little redhead girl smiles back, her curious and goodhearted eyes convincing him to give her a little wave. Her mother comes up behind her, tapping her shoulder to get her attention. It fails for her but succeeds in gaining his. His eyes come upon her angry face, mad at the girl for not responding to her as the aide from another family stands ready to greet the girl; she swaps it when the girl finally turns back into a smile. The aide follows protocol and bows to the girl, no doubt the firstborn child of her mother and therefore heir to the family's position. Aides were selected from an early age and trained to be the perfect diplomats and spies. Their entire purpose was to bridge the gaps between families or destroy them in the shadows.

The Aide's fake smiles and false enjoyment might slip over the girl's mother, but they do not slip over Gregory, and neither does the mother's happiness as she pulls the man aside. Discussing a matter and pointing at the girl, then glancing towards a boy in a booth on the second level. An arranged marriage before the girl was even considered beyond a toddler or properly expected to brush her teeth at night. The aide's smile and grins of opportunity for his employers were plastered upon his face as she went on and on. Gregory looks back at the little girl as another aide enters the booth, not important enough to gain even a look from her mother. But the girl, as she was learning to do, gives the aide the time of day by approaching and awaiting the aide's expected bow. She gives it and is followed in doing so by a general who also enters the booth behind her.