Chapter thirty one

         "The next words out of your mouth better be a very good explanation or you are going to end up with a sizeable hole in your fancy mask. Oh by the way good explanations include 'this was my bad attempt at a joke and I have a terrible sense of humor' and 'I am not sure what Atelli means and might have made a mistake.' "

         "That's an interesting term for us, 'the Atelli' . Most of us would probably find it insulting, most of us prefer lofty terms like the shining ones but I think Atelli is perfect to describe us. You see Atelli is a word that means imperfect or incomplete. Most of us would find the suggestion that we are anything less than perfect completely unacceptable, it is nothing short of blasphemy to most of us. We force ourselves into believing that our flawed form is perfection while inside we seethe in jealousy , observing other creations that have everything that we are denied. We told ourselves that as we are pure spiritual beings we are not tainted by the need for physical objects and as such are higher beings while inside we secretly craved what you enjoyed everyday the ability to see colors , to hear music , to feel the sensation on ones skin. The trivial things you take for granted we craved beyond reason , for you see we were not only cursed to be deaf and blind but by some cruel twist of fate we could see flashes of your world so that we could know exactly how pathetic our existence really was. The only way most of us could deal with it was denial. We weren't the imperfect ones, we weren't the pathetic ones. We started to rationalize these irrational thoughts. Instead of accepting our flaws most of us started to criticize you instead, saying things like you were driven by material needs, that you were destroying yourselves slowly, that you were imperfect and needed salvation and we would be that salvation. Most of the Atelli tell themselves that they are doing this for the sake of humanity, do you know that? They tell themselves they are the good guys but inside they hate you for having something that they were denied and you can see exactly how they feel when they maul the soul of their host and twist them into ugly abominations. But some of us don't delude ourselves , we are imperfect. We need a human soul to make us complete, instead of forcing our will upon our hosts some of us choose to be symbiotic rather than parasitic and that is what I am."

          "That's an interesting story Mike or Adonis or whatever your name is but then who am I talking to, the human or the Atelli?"

          "You don't get it, there is no human or Atelli anymore, we are one. When a human accepts an Atelli willingly there is no fight for dominance because the souls are melded seamlessly."

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          "Again , a very interesting and completely unverifiable answer. Tell you what, for now I won't shoot you brains out, you did help me out here after all and killing you after that would make me an ungrateful bitch so this is what's going to happen, I'll back away slowly and leave this place. You will not follow me or my decision to not paint the asphalt with your brain will change, understood? Good. Goodbye Mike, it was nice meeting you again."

           As I slowly backed away Mike started to shrink slightly and his golden glow disappeared as his body turned into a more normal pale color. The strange thing was that the golden glow on his knives also faded leaving them a normal golden color, another mystery I had to look into I guess.

          Once around the corner I bolted in a random direction while taking out a cellphone that Kazimir gave me to use in case of emergencies. I called him and asked him to pick me up, he got to me in less than fifteen minutes.

           Back in the bunker I explained everything that had happened to him. He was very interested in what Mike had to say, in fact he made me recite everything he said word for word while recording it with a tape recorder. 

           After I was finished telling him everything Kazimir asked me, "What do you think about this Adonis person, do you think he was telling you the truth?"

           I thought about it for a moment and I actually did think that he was telling the truth. He could have stabbed me in the back at the beginning of the fight and he did save me from the very real possibility of dying in that Atelli ambush, plus if he wanted to make something up to make me trust him being a good Atelli probably wouldn't be his first choice. Ironically what made me believe him was that he admitted to being one of the Atelli.

          "Yeah, I think he is telling the truth."

           "But do you trust him enough that we start working with him? You are an amazing operative Sophia, especially considering that you have no formal training and your powers give you an amazing advantage but going in alone against such overwhelming odds without someone to watch your back is too dangerous as you found out today. I wish that I could go with you myself but I know that I would be almost useless against the Atelli and probably put you in more danger than if you went in alone. If we can find you a partner that we can trust to fight by your side it would be a huge load off my mind, so do you trust him?"

          In the end that is what it boils down to.

          To trust or not to trust.