Era of Madness

Trap

For some seconds, Tyler stood there, utterly speechless. Then he managed to get his composure back, his face not betraying his panic too much, or so he thought:

"Excuse me, sir, but I think you came across the wrong person, my name is Hilbert Grantz" he said, spitting out the name of the person he was acting as. "But I must say, you made me curious, what is the trap that this 'Tyler' is supposed to fall in"

The masked person chuckled, slightly shaking their head:

"Tyler, Tyler, oh Tyler... oh right, you don't want me to call you by your name in here, do you? Can I call you Tyl then?" they asked. "Or maybe Facemask? The-guy-imosting-a-guy-trapped-in-a-building?"

Seeing that this person was going to make him get caught, Tyler gave up on his acting and, whispering, he admitted:

"Ok, ok, I'm Tyler, the great Tyler Rochemord, are you happy? Now tell me about this so-called trap before I throw you from the balcony" he threatened.

Of course, it was a bluff. First, Tyler was barely above average in term of fighting abilities, and had close to no chance to beat someone who managed to infiltrate the Party Hall on their own and without disguise. And in addition, even if he actually managed to push them above the guardrail, the probability that no additionnal security was added to such an advanced building as the Party Hall.

"Oh my, you're really the great, incredible Tyler?!" the masked person exclaimed, shaking slightly a glass of champaign in his hand. "I was just making a wild guess, I never imagined it was really you!"

"You- are you serious?" Tyler asked, stunned.

"No, I'm Cain. Cain the magician"

"What?"

"Cain the magician, that's my name. Aaaand, to come back to our topic, of course I knew it was you, do you really think it's possible to stumble across the exact person you search in such a big place? I mean, I'm a great magician, miracles are my thing so of course I could, but uhm..."

He brung his glass to the small hand-drawn smile on his mask and tried drinking a bit of his champaign, to no use as the edge of the glasswas blocked by the mask. However, he didn't pay any attention to this as, while keeping trying, he kept talking:

"Anyway, getting back to the trap, were you guys really expecting that Enry Arsin, a guy smart enough to play the dictatorship game for an entire planet, wouldn't see your plan coming?" he asked without waiting for an answer "Moving while the cyborgs aren't there... Really, even I saw this coming, it's that obvious"

"Yeah, yeah, obvious" Tyler said, restraining his fist to connect with Cain's face. "My question is: what exactly is this damn trap?"

"Come on, Tyler, I'm sure you can guess it on your own. Think about it: he knows he' probably your main target, and he knows there's a big chance you sneaked in here since it's you guys' best occasion. Also, nobody have seen him yet. But on the other side, he can't be sure you guys are here, since you managed to get past the Fefnir tech's identification systems with those cool masks of yours. In his place, what choice do you think he'd make?"

As he said that, Cain accidentally pressed his glass too strong against his mask and made it slip, spilling some champaign over himself:

"Oh, come on, it's the third time this week!"

Tyler paid it absolutly no attention, focusing on the magician's previous words. If he was Enry Arsin, in such a perious situation where he couldn't be sure exactly about his ennemies' actions, what would he do? On one side, he himself was threatened, and on the other side, he couldn't simply stay still, because those 'terrorists' might actually target someone else, and even without it, missing their capture would already be bad enough.