“Where do you live?” Rod said with a sardonic grin. “Tell me because I will get my hands on the system, even if it means breaking into your home,” he thought sneakily.
Two women in his past had affected him like that. Two women had disrupted his disordered personality many times, shaking it out of the darkness and into the burning, scorching light. But these women his brain could rationalise using the language of misogyny. These two women his brain could put up a great resistance towards – a great logical resistance! These words spoken by his best friend, however, created not another battle, another chaos, but rather a war. Best friend! One may wonder why he thought of this man as not only his friend but his best friend, but that can easily be explained by the fact that these two men were the only people who stayed his friend despite his behaviour for over ten years, when everyone else had abandoned him, had thrown him away for being different, for suffering greatly! Not only that, for he was one of the few who helped him survive highschool – the brutality of highschool. He was one of the few who once said that he would visit him in prison on the most damnest and socially unacceptable charge! The torture chamber, the ultimate experiment. The Best friend! A man who was like a brother to him! How terrible he was! How brutal, and scathing, and ruthlessly honest! He could not discount what a brother said to him. And yet how much his brother asked from him! That man seemed to be able to cut right through to his heart and leave no room for rationalisation, and to defeat him mercilessly in combat before he could even mobilise his defences. A best friend! Was there anything better than a best friend!
Yes; there had been plenty of times where this man had wronged him. He had used this rationale previously to justify his behaviour before. This time, however, his sins outweighed his brother’s. He understood now that his own plank was greater. Life suddenly opened a hole that had been previously plugged with a foreign substance. It seemed to him that the blindfold he had been wearing his whole life that he did not know that he was wearing had suddenly been pulled off without warning. How had he not known this before?
With his subtle smirk, Jam watched the young student eagerly, like a shark ready to shred to pieces a small fish. Although he knew how to psychologically break Rod, it was gratifying to watch another man do it to him. He felt immensely satisfied. So satisfied was he, he was stupendously amazed at the quality of the argument that came out of the greedy businessman’s mouth, for such rhetoric coming out of the billionaire was usually empty and simply contrarian. But this...this was glorious. What amazed him most was that he did not have to say anything himself, but that the knife was successfully plunged into his enemy’s back without him even having to lift a finger. Yes...yes, he had successfully turned the only friend left Rod had against him. Hacking into Aleku’s computer terminal and propagating his social media feed over the years with Nietzsche had successfully paid off. In fact, this particular argument was the amalgamation of several sociopolitical books he had subliminally introduced to the man over the last decade. He remembered programming several conversation bots to reproduce ‘48 Laws of Power’ through a series of posts on a particular imageboard that he knew the father of sixteen frequented, a book which Jam himself studied obsessively after studying his first degree; for it was necessary for a man like himself to study how to navigate the social system of modern day humans. He wondered if Aleku also used the book to succeed in the social strata. Jam had merely programmed a few simple lines of code. Had it worked? Had he successfully manipulated a billionaire and his enemy in one go? How immensely proud he was! This dog will finally be put down – all without blood on his hands. Aleku will take the fall for and he will swoop in and save the family dynasty by marrying one of his daughters.
Jam softened his expression, removing any trace of self-satisfaction and glee from it, and let out rings of smoke, distracting them with their perfect symmetry. He was sure to say nothing, knowing when not to speak in order to strike the most effectively in order to psychologically destroy somebody. He was very conscious of the pain Rod was afflicted with.
“Aleku, where is it that you live?” cried Rod Beasely, his eyes twinkling with the birth of new tears.
“My good friend, I apologise profusely. When I have taken off my top and opened a bottle of Smirnoff, and have a fat cigar hanging from my lip, I cannot think of having any friends over, only lovers. But you have never looked so utterly miserable as you do now, and I feel frankly awful about it – believe it or not. You were perfectly undeserving of my intense mockery. And you have piqued my curiosity with your beautiful face and hideous personality – the juxtaposition I find marvelous and frankly entertaining. I don’t know what you have done to make Jam so upset with you, but the dynamic that the three of us have is something that cannot be replicated with just the two of us; and having two beautiful creatures as my friends will hopefully make me beautiful as well. So come, my good friend, come and join me have a touch of this African Blackwood that I have stolen. I suppose that I can have you two over for supper. But please do not say any weird things to my daughter, for she already has enough of those already.”
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“He will definitely say something weird to your daughter,” said Jam in a fluster, “you must be an idiot to let this freak come. He cannot be trusted around the opposite sex.”
Rod bit his lip in anger, and said quickly, “You don’t know what you are talking about. Perhaps it is you that is projecting.”
Aleku roared in laughter, placing his hand on his hairy belly, “Hold up, boys. Let us save the fighting for later. It will be a fun night. Come on, Jam, come over and have a drink like old times. I do not believe that you really have stopped being Rod’s friend. You two are practically the same person, anyway.” He burst out laughing at that moment, and said, in between bursts of coughing, “you could teach my daughter a thing or two about the law. She has expressed interest in that field.”
The legal prosecutor frowned and thought for a moment, his cheeks ringed with rose-gold. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll come and sup with you and Rod. I do not plan on sleeping anyway.”
“It’s 3am,” Aleku said with astonishment. “Bailey is still not here yet. No matter, come to the address I posted in the chat and let us party like old times. Rod, go to the nearest stadium and I will have one of my helicopters pick you up and bring you to Manchester.”
“I do not party,” said Jam coldly, “but I will come and observe.”
Rod started and drew back at the mention of the name uttered so casually by Aleku. “It cannot be,” he shook his head quickly. He dismissed the thought that Aleku’s daughter was the same woman he had been talking to for the past month, for that Bailey was in America, and she made no mention of Aleku being her father. Wouldn’t one brag about that? Why would she be working in a call centre if her father was literally the richest man on the planet? Rod laughed, his heart fluttering with excitement. His life was about to change if he could get his hands on the system before Jam could stop him.
“There is one other thing I must mention,” said Aleku seriously, his face dropping into a frown, “Rod I know that you have a propensity to become fixated on a woman, so I must tell you first and foremost, although my daughter is single and unmarried, she will and I repeat, she will never be yours; not in any capacity will I ever allow a relationship of any kind exist between you and her. I would sooner command all of NATO armies against you than allow you to touch even an arm hair upon even the ugliest of all my daughters. Actually, do not even talk to her. Wait, no, don’t even look at her.”
“You make even Aleku’s skin crawl,” laughed Jam.
Rod grew red with embarrassment. “Shut up you idiot,” he said, his eyes glistening with tears. “I wish I had never met you,” he muttered. He frowned and lowered his head. He could not help but feel like the rich, very testosterone-laden man was right. His cheery demeanor contrasted with his self-pitying look only served to wear his chest down to the bone, leaving his vulnerable heart bare and exposed like a caged cockatiel. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said in a huff. “A man like his would surely keep his prized invention inside his own house. That is what I would do,” he thought. “I will go back, rewrite my painful past by becoming popular and doing everything by the ‘book’, and then return to the present and be a completely different person! I will then take up the woman of my dreams in my arms and be the man I was supposed to be, be the boyfriend I was supposed to be, act in the way I ought to have acted, and finally achieve that which has been haunting and pressing me all my life.”
“Prepare your best highschool stories,” said Aleku, downing his third shot of purple-coloured vodka. “This is going to be a good night.”
“Such is my inheritance! Such is my destiny!” continued Rod in his head, “I deserve this. I deserve a good life. I deserve to have rich, attractive and popular friends. I deserve to be liked and loved and lusted. I deserve to be wanted. These men...these crabs in a bucket only want to prevent that. But no! I will get back what I was robbed all those years ago. Is it my fault that I am autistic? What has society done for me? It has done nothing. We live in a capitalistic society where the strong, brave and beautiful are rewarded. What do they say, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Yes, yes, I am justified in my determination for a good life. And morality! Morality is simply the weapon the rich and prosperous use to keep the poor in their poverty – to justify their exploitation. Oh, I have failed my assignments for voicing this in my essays. Those lecturers serve the institutions...Those institutions are what is truly wrong with society. These institutions are financed by the rich and prosperous. Therefore, it is imperitive that I do something about this. I will save society. I will go back and bring down those who are rich and bring up those who are poor; i will go back and bring down those who are popular and lift up those who are autistic. Yes, yes, I will do just that! Is it bad to steal from thieves? No, it is not. Is it bad to break a law designed to stifle the weak and prosper the strong? No, it is not. I will use what has been given to me to transform society. I will completely flip the social strata around. At first I will wear the mask and advance up the social strata, but from the top I will then commit the change that has been a long time coming. Yes, yes! And you two...I will leave you two in the dust.” Rod broke out laughing as he walked down St Mary’s street, past all the pubs and clubs, to the roundabout, wherein he then went up Tresillan way, turning right down Lloyd George Avenue, towards the stadium. He was brimming with excitement.