Ricochet

9.8 m/s^2

Alexander had just woken up. The surroundings were unfamiliar to him. He remembered himself being led down the fire escape stairs on gun point, shoved into a vehicle and sedated. He had no chance to fight back. He had trusted Daniel and his men. They were supposed to be infallible. The man had achieved great things. Guarding him should've not been a problem for Daniel. He wondered what went wrong.

All the light in the room was from an incandescent bulb. The walls were not painted. The smell of cement and concrete filled the space. He brought his focus back from the unfamiliar surroundings. He had always been useful to Daniel. Not always by choice. That has always been his methodology. Daniel was always the dominant one in whatever connections he made. He had threatened him multiple times over the years due to which he had to comply. The threat due to which he finds him here today, came shortly after his last effort to impress him.

"People who sleep well are more likely to be happy. I'm not saying this out of my ass. Studies seem to agree."

It was Mark who broke his chain of thoughts. He did not reply.

"I know... you have been sleeping a lot today... Getting you out was no small task. Your men put up a very good fight."

Again silence.

"Good for you that I am in a chatty mood tonight. I lost most of my men. To be fair most of them had nothing to do with me. Some of them, you can identify. But yes, I lost my friend and I'm a bit lonely. I thought we could have a chat before you know... we got started."

What he had done last for Daniel was comparatively minor to what he has done before. It was a simple case. He had issued a judgement barring non-government charitable organizations from lobbying in politics. Using this provision, one such organization was debarred. Some of these organizations he thought existed just to generate outrage by digging out dirt way beyond their pay grade and some were so litigation-happy that they will demand everything needed to be publicly accessible. This judgement had support politically and was seen as a voice of reason.

Mark cleared his throat. "You are not listening."

"Sorry," Alex replied. He asked irritably, "What do you want from me?"

"Isn't that obvious? A testimony. For all the lies you spewed for him"

"You know that is not possible." Alex was scared but it was the truth.

"Why not?"

"He will take down everything with him if anything comes out. He has threatened to kill my family..."

"Oh, what a bummer... what about the families you ruined?" Mark was not happy.

"You know, I grew up in prison for better or worse. Probably worse. Fights break out in prisons normally all the time. Worse when instigated. I saw men fight to death from my cell. It was chaos. I could see better in the darkness rather than get exposed to sunlight. "

"Enough about me, there was a man who kept me sane. He helped me in dealing with my addiction. The man taught me how to paint... Do I look to you like a person who can paint? ... Not to me either ... He told me that while it was unfortunate that I ended up there, I could use the time to get better as a person... Anybody could be reformed... things like that. Never understood him. Never will."

"He was wrong by the way... about the last part... Regardless, he used to keep me away from scenarios where I could end up in fights... with my age, it was curtains... yeah, so here's the thing... in one of such fights, one of them got knocked down so hard that they passed out for days. Whenever he did gain consciousness, all he wanted was to be put out of his misery. My man did it out of kindness... I've seen him do it. I only had respect towards him..."