Chapter 370: The Villain Asked About My Good Side

The platform rolled toward the man in white while he studied me with the pleased expression of someone whose expensive order had arrived looking better than the photograph.

I braced my lower length against the rail. Lukas grabbed the opposite side, keeping himself upright as the wheels rattled over a join in the loading floor.

The bright mark on the frame faded once we stopped within talking distance.

"Matthew Vane," the man said. "You looked wonderful in the breakfast footage, although somebody should have warned you about the camera on your left."

"Somebody should have warned your owner about putting customers behind a locked door."

"He’ll receive a correction. The panic worked, but his delivery lacked taste."

The man had a narrow lizard face, small scales along his jaw and a folded frill beneath his collar. His white suit remained spotless despite a yard that coated every working person in dust. A cleaner followed several steps behind him, carrying a brush and the defeated patience of a man whose employer considered weather a staffing failure.

I recognized the face from the ruined presentation stand.

"Rex Rattle, unless somebody else paid to put that much chin on a billboard."

He laughed as though I had arrived with a complimentary service he hadn’t known to request.

[System: Careful, mate. He likes you, and I’ve seen enough men with private billboards to know that liking somebody usually ends with a bloody invoice or a shallow grave.]

Rex’s poster described him as an A-ranked rescue performer. I didn’t know who checked advertising claims out here, but the unhurried way his guards gave him room made me unwilling to test the wording with my face.

He stepped onto the platform and looked at the stolen dispatch token resting against my underside.

"You caused an expensive interruption last night. Then you opened my worker enclosure, copied my routes and removed property from my office."

"I also ate some disappointing potatoes, but I appreciated you keeping the list focused."

"That is exactly what I mean. Most people become tedious when they’re frightened. You keep producing something worth watching."

He reached for the token.

I moved it behind my lower length and shifted my head toward his wrist, intending to make the attempt unpleasant without committing to a fight beside Lukas.

Galaxy Brain read the angle of his shoulder before the strike came. It gave me a clear picture of what would happen if I stayed where I was.

My body still failed to move quickly enough.

Rex caught the side of my head with the heel of his hand and drove me against the platform rail. Pain flashed along my jaw, joining older soreness with the enthusiasm of someone arriving late to a party.

The token fell onto the deck. Lukas moved toward me, but I lifted my head before he stepped into Rex’s reach.

"Stay back, because understanding the punch didn’t make it any less of a bastard."

Rex watched me recover with professional interest rather than anger.

His body showed no grafts, extra growths or altered tissue I could identify. Natural scales and a frill were not permission to use Bio-Recall. I could meet his eyes perfectly and still lack the condition the skill required.

He picked up the token, held it between two fingers and smiled.

"I prefer you alive. There are rooms, food and money available if you stop treating every invitation as an insult. Your friend can stay with you, provided he follows instructions."

Lukas looked at the guards behind the platform.

"The last invitation called us cargo."

"An administrative description," Rex said. "People become uncomfortable when you make them read the working notes."

I thought about the diners pressing against a locked exit while his employee discussed the audience. There had been nothing accidental about those notes either.

"You create the danger, sell the panic and arrive looking useful once the price feels right."

Rex’s frill lifted slightly above his collar.

"Sometimes the danger is already present. There is no reason to waste a perfectly good emergency merely because nature provided it without asking for a share."

Behind him, the guards waited for permission instead of crowding forward, which told me whose judgment mattered when the pleasant voice stopped working. He offered a percentage of future appearances. I asked whether it included the footage already sold, and he laughed again before answering that my cooperation would improve his generosity.

That was the part I hated most. He recognized the bits of me that liked money, attention and seeing an enemy lose control, then assumed those bits came with a handle he could hold.

[System: Don’t let the expensive shirt confuse you, champ. He’s selling you a leash with catering, and the catering looked ordinary before anybody got punched.]

I was more concerned about the leash, although the food remained relevant.

Rex leaned against a wheeled steel divider beside the platform. His palm rested flat on its frame while he continued talking, and Lukas’s eyes followed the contact.

"You could make a fortune working with me," Rex said. "People would pay even more to watch you die, but I would rather avoid wasting the earlier episodes."

The lie detector stayed quiet.

He meant it, and there was something much worse about a threat delivered without needing to dress itself as a promise.

A guard approached the platform’s rear steps. Lukas shifted toward the side opening, where a narrow maintenance passage ran between the shed and a stack of empty crates.

I moved first, slipping off the low edge into that passage while keeping Rex in view. The divider’s frame brightened beneath his hand.

There was a brief warning before it moved, enough for me to understand the next problem without enough room to solve it.

Rex stepped behind the divider and pulled it across the opening toward himself. The heavy steel slammed against the shed’s stop, sealing the passage between me and Lukas.

Through the narrowing gap, I saw my friend still on the platform beside Rex while the last strip of daylight disappeared.