Escape: Through the Fourth Wall

3: Mayor, Mayor, On The Wall, Who's The Shadiest Of Them All?

After an uneasy thirty seconds, I spoke. "I really do want to do the right thing." I pried my eyes off his gaze. "You know better than anyone the situation the city is in." I brought my gaze back to his. His dark coal pupils appeared to flicker with some unearthly light. "The crime, the loss, the pain."

"I do." His eyes seemed to be piercing through mine, searching my soul. "But that, my friend, is  a job for our fiends at  TCOSTCIICFLDILLI. And you're preventing them from-"

He stopped when he saw my face. "Friends at what?"

He sighed. "TCOSTCIICFLDILLI. The City Official Station for Temporary Custody, Inspection and Investigation of Criminals and Filing of Lots Of Documents Involving Long Lines Inc."

I made an exaggerated face again, even though I now knew perfectly well what he was talking about.

He sighed exaggeratedly and mumbled, "The Police Station."

My face lit up with pretend understanding. "Oh, the Police Station! Why didn't you say so?"

The mayor's sigh was so exaggerated it deserved its own sitcom reboot.

"Look, Paladin," he took another sip of his wine, "our policemen have a job. A job that they have not been able to do for the last- what- six months?" I shrugged in response.

"I'll take that as a yes. Six months, they have been unable to do their jobs because you" his glare was so accusing it might as well have been his index finger, "have been doing it for them."

I smiled innocently. "Are you offering to pay me?"

He looked at me coldly. I was getting used to it.

"Do you understand what would happen if there was no need for the police?"

Seeing that I didn't respond, he continued, "No need for the police means a huge amount of money wasted. We can't allow that to continue to happen for long, and, combined with their spiralling negative portrayal in the eyes of the public, the policemen will face compulsory premature retirement."

"You mean they'll be fired. So?"

"If there are no policemen, who will you give- no, dump the criminals you catch on? Better yet, what do you think will happen when criminals find out that daytime becomes the perfect time to do whatever they please, when you're not around to..." he shrugged one shoulder, "...save the day? What then, Paladin? Can you be there to save the day at all places, at all times?"

I blinked. I hadn't thought of that.

"Those guys at the City Jail could lend me a hand?" I asked hopefully. "Maybe... you?"

He scoffed scornfully. "There are legal procedures, and the fact that you have no backup plan shows that you must cease these shenanigans immediately.  And I have no intention of turning my prized estate into a space for delinquents and petty thieves." 

I smiled at him. "Aw, Mister Mayor," I said, and he narrowed his eyes, "I was expecting you to accept to house a few more criminals. After all," and I leaned in closer just to see how his face would look when I finished my sentence, "aren't you one of them?"

He paused. Then he chuckled. "I beg your pardon?" His fake smile evidently needed a break because he quickly hid it behind his glass.

My next words were a harsh whisper. "What were you doing with the centaur?"

He choked and spilled all the remaining wine not-so-daintily on his desk. "W-what?" he spluttered. Two of his body guards rushed to his aid, but he held up a hand and they backed away.

"Four months ago, I hurled an invisible centaur out of harm's way- away from a car. A car carrying a couple of men with what looked like weird guns." I pointed at the mayor's two bodyguards who were standing behind him and holding the very guns I was talking about. "Those guns."

He said nothing. So I continued.

"Mayor, have you ever heard of invisible centaurs? Centaurs, yes. Invisibility, sure. But those two have never gone together, at least as far as I'm aware."

More silence.

"Also, how did it even get into The City?" I feigned musing over the question by looking away and stroking my chin. "There's a huge electrical titanium-alloy fence across The Forest and Timber Lake. On all other sides The City is surrounded by an ocean, and all openings are guarded by top-class military under your orders. So unless it was small enough to burrow underneath the fence, or was tiny enough and had some sort of flight ability to enter undetected, I don't see how it could have reached The City."

The mayor's silence had become so thick you couldn't cut through it with a knife if you tried.

"Unless of course," I was smirking this time, "said top-class military were ordered to stand down."

"M-Maybe it was an anomaly, an invisible centaur, it isn't exactly imposs-," the mayor's frantic search for an excuse was cut short- we did a lot of cutting short that day- by more of my pretend pondering.

"I wonder who the only person with the authority to give that order was? Oh, that's right." I narrowed my eyes at him, my act ending abruptly.

"You. Shady, don't you think?"

A bead of sweat shifted swiftly across his sleek face.

"I-I think you should leave."

"I think so too." My reply was quick but smug. "Tomorrow will be a busy day."

And with that, I walked out of the room.

_

The mayor hit his desk in frustration. The 'session' with The Paladin had not gone the way he had hoped.

Not only had he failed at getting him to stop being a hero, he had found that the man knew much more about the secret project than he had thought.

He took out a picture of the  man from his pocket and looked at it.

No, he thought. Not man. Boy.

No alcohol, probably not eighteen yet. 'Tomorrow will be a big day' is what he said. Tomorrow, coincidentally the start of a fresh academic year.

The mayor scowled, crushed the photo into a ball presumably for dramatic effect, and threw it into a burning fireplace that most definitely didn't exist before this line.

Paladin, he thought, I will unmask you.

***

Meanwhile, right outside the building the mayor was pretending to be every movie villain ever in, stood the protagonist we all know but don't really love yet because this is only the third chapter, not to mention that the first two were merely character development.

Mayor, our hero thought as he looked up at the mayor's office, which like every other building in the book has an unnecessarily long name that no main character uses, I will discover what you are doing. And I will stop it.

Then he turned around and headed home.

___

This chapter was originally going to be the one where Jack meets the other main characters at his new University, but it was getting too long and had to be cut short.

That's enough cutting short for one chapter.

Also, Happy New Year I guess?