Contingencies

Who: Max
Where: His basement
When: Five years ago

He was twenty years old and his closest and only real friend was his twelve year old sister.

That could be incredibly sad all things considered.

Max didn't think so. While she was certainly a liability, she was the only one who truly seemed to understand him despite her young age. The only one who smiled in delight at the sight of him. The one he gave secret gifts to and snuck away to play games on the boardwalk. That smile was gone now, his sister tucked in bed, deathly ill and the question of survival was actually valid.

The unfamiliar hollow feeling settled deep inside of him as he walked down the steps to his basement, a bare bulb illuminating his desk which was more of a drawing table. He unfurled a large map of the city and held it in place with thumbtacks and began to make marks. The mansion. The Drake. City Hall. The school. The police department... on he went marking various landmarks around the city.

When he finished, he studied his work with a critical eye. The police station, he decided, would be the first to go. With the station in utter chaos, little manpower could be spared to track down the subsequent destruction of the Drake hotel. The murders of various members of society all seemingly unrelated. The Hagels, then the precious Walkers, and then his own family. The ones who shunned him.

The ones held accountable should Arienne ever die.

It didn't matter how it might happen. Her current sickness or an accident or murder. The entire city would fall to its knees if he lost her.

A muffled moan came from the darkened part of the basement and Max looked over calmly. Another moan drew him from his chair and he pulled the chain, sending light spilling weakly over the makeshift rack. Arienne's former nursemaid was stretched out; bruised and bloody with her limbs tied up. It had been her who had passed the cough onto his sister, the one that had turned into pneumonia and Max reached out and turned the wheel another two notches. The woman's screams were still muffled by the gag but her tears ran freely down her dirty cheeks. He watched them shine in the dim light and he was moved.

Another notch should do it.

Done for the time being, Max returned to his desk and picke dup his pen to continue. The woman's cries continued and he sighed heavily, looking over at her. "You're being very rude right now," he said plainly with a narrow look. "I'm trying to concentrate." He was very polite about it despite his disappointment in her and she must have heard it because she began to cry harder. Good. She should feel bad.

With a heavy sigh he cranked on the phonograph, Chopin beginning to fill the room and he put on a pair of earmuffs for good measure. Satisfied, Max sat back down and began to work out the details for the death of the Mayor.

The man wanted to be made immortal, did he not? Concrete seemed like it might help that.